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There are currently over 69,000 troops still serving in Afghanistan, mostly US troops and some from other nations of the 50-member NATO coalition.

Our troops are serving in some of the most dangerous places to be in the world, where the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies continue to try and destabilize a nation, to bring back a safe haven for radical Islam where extremists can train, plot, and launch attacks against the nations of the Western world, primarily the United States.

Our mission is to send care packages to support those brave troops! For as little as $25 you can send support to a Soldier, Marine, Airman, Sailor, or Guardsman serving overseas. Each package contains lots of goodies and helpful items that our troops appreciate, such as coffee, cookies, beef jerky, deodorant, wet wipes and more!

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Publicly released records show that embattled former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman visited the White House at least 157 times during the Obama administration, more recorded visits than even the most trusted members of the president’s Cabinet.

Obama officials who’ve visited the White House (As prepared by The Daily Caller)

Shulman’s extensive access to the White House first came to light during his testimony last week before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Shulman gave assorted answers when asked why he had visited the White House 118 times during the period that the IRS was targeting tea party and conservative nonprofits for extra scrutiny and delays on their tax-exempt applications.

By contrast, Shulman’s predecessor Mark Everson only visited the White House once during four years of service in the George W. Bush administration and compared the IRS’s remoteness from the president to “Siberia.” But the scope of Shulman’s White House visits — which strongly suggests coordination by White House officials in the campaign against the president’s political opponents — is even more striking in comparison to the publicly recorded access of Cabinet members.

An analysis by The Daily Caller of the White House’s public “visitor access records” showed that every current and former member of President Obama’s Cabinet would have had to rack up at least 60 more public visits to the president’s home to catch up with “Douglas Shulman.”

The visitor logs do not give a complete picture of White House access. Some high-level officials get cleared for access and do not have to sign in during visits. A Washington Post database of visitor log records cautions, “The log may include some scheduled visits that did not take place and exclude visits by members of Congress, top officials and others who are not required to sign in at security gates.”

Nevertheless, many visits by current and former Cabinet members are in the logs, and the record depicts an IRS chief uniquely at home in the White House.

Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama’s friend and loyal lieutenant, logged 62 publicly known White House visits, not even half as many as Shulman’s 157.

Former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, to whom Shulman reported, clocked in at just 48 publicly known visits.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earned a cool 43 public visits, and current Secretary of State John Kerry logged 49 known White House visits in the same timeframe, when he was still a U.S. senator.

I know what the good people of Moore, Ok are going through today because my family survived an F5 tornado when we were children. And last night, my sister and my mother, who live in a small town near Springfield, Mo. stayed awake all night as the tornado sirens blared and the weather channel warned of the coming twisters. Fortunately, no one was hurt. But my sister Michelle survived a more recent cyclone in Joplin, Missouri two years ago, and she had flash-backs all night.

If you can help with a donation to the Red Cross, please do. Re-building will be costly and extensive.

At least 20 children are among the 51 confirmed dead after a destructive tornado with winds up to 200 mph laid waste to scores of buildings and landed a direct blow on an elementary school in Moore, Oklahoma, pictured, with officials saying they could see as many as 40 more fatalities as rescuers race to find survivors.

Catherine Engelbrecht’s tale has all the markings of a classic conspiracy theory: She says she thinks that because of her peaceful political activity, she and her family was targeted for scrutiny by hostile federal agencies.

Yet as news emerges that the Internal Revenue Service wielded its power to obstruct conservative groups, Catherine’s story becomes credible — and chilling. It also raises questions about whether other federal agencies have used their executive powers to target those deemed political enemies.earnings, bought a computerized numerical-control machine, which does precision metal-cutting, and began operating out of his garage. “That was about 20 years ago,” he says. “Now, we’re up to about 30 employees.”

For two decades, Bryan and Catherine drove to work in their big truck. Engelbrecht Manufacturing Inc. now operates out of a 20,000-square-foot metal building on the prairie just outside of Houston, where a “semi-pet coyote lives in the field just behind us,” Bryan says. They went back to their country home each night. Stress was rare, and life was good.

But the 2008 elections left Catherine feeling frustrated about the debates, which seemed to be a string of superficial talking points. So she began attending tea-party meetings, enjoying the political discussion. A spunky woman known for her drive, Catherine soon wanted to do more than just talk. She joined other tea partiers and decided to volunteer at the ballot box. Working as an alternate judge at the polls in 2009 in Fort Bend County, Texas, Catherine says, she was appalled and dismayed to witness everything from administrative snafus to outright voter fraud.

These formative experiences prompted her to found two organizations: King Street Patriots, a local community group that hosts weekly discussions on personal and economic freedoms; and True the Vote, which seeks to prevent voter fraud and trains volunteers to work as election monitors. It also registers voters, attempts to validate voter-registration lists, and pursues fraud reports to push for prosecution if illegal activity has occurred.

Bryan says that when his wife began focusing on politics, working less often at the manufacturing shop, “I told her, ‘You have my undying support.’” He pauses, then adds in his thick Texan drawl: “Little did I know she’d take it this far!”

In July 2010, Catherine filed with the IRS seeking tax-exempt status for her organizations. Shortly after, the troubles began.

That winter, the Federal Bureau of Investigation came knocking with questions about a person who had attended a King Street Patriots event once. Based on sign-in sheets, the organization discovered that the individual in question had attended an event, but “it was a come-and-go thing,” and they had no further information on hand about him. Nevertheless, the FBI also made inquiries about the person to the office manager, who was a volunteer.

The King Street Patriots weren’t the only ones under scrutiny. On January 11, the IRS visited the Engelbrechts’ shop and conducted an on-site audit of both their business and their personal returns, Catherine says.

In the days since the Internal Revenue Service first disclosed that it had targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, new information has emerged from both the Treasury Inspector General’s report and congressional testimony Friday that calls into question key statements made by Lois G. Lerner, the IRS’s director of the exempt organizations division.The clumsy way the IRS disclosed the issue as well as Lerner’s press briefing by phone were seen at the time as a public relations disaster.

The Washington Post on Monday reported that Obama’s Department of Justice was investigating journalists before they started wiretapping the Associated Press – for one, Fox News correspondent James Rosen in 2010. Their headline wasn´t "Obama Team Also Spied on Fox News." Fox wasn´t in the headline, on A-1 or on A-12, where the story continued. Newly obtained court documents “reveal how deeply investigators explored the private communications of a working journalist — and raise the question of how often journalists have been investigated as closely as Rosen was in 2010.” Reporter Ann Marimow began:

As outgoing IRS head Steven Miller, pictured, prepares to face questions on targeting of conservative groups at congressional hearing, sources reveal IRS official Sarah Hall Ingram, who led tax-exempt organizations unit at the time, now leads the ObamaCare unit.

FOX News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes will be honored with the $250,000 Bradley Prize for being a "visionary of American journalism" on June 12 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. by Stephen K. Bannon & Tony Lee

Joe Battenfeld: Obama’s Attempt At Damage Control Laughable. “There was a certain panicky look about the way the president quickly delivered a rare evening White House statement to try to quell the growing outrage over the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups. The move showed how damaging the scandal has become to Obama’s second term and maybe even his presidency. But Obama took no questions and, more importantly, no responsibility for the ugly episode of the federal government abusing its power for political reasons.”

Margery Eagan: Even Liberals Are Leaping Off The Bandwagon. “The same media types accused of covering Obama on bended knee — such as myself — are now turning our collective backs. And no wonder. What we’re learning about his administration has undermined our basic trust in government. Yet the president seems oblivious to how serious and unsettling these scandals are, and how much damage he’s done to his own agenda. And how he’s fed right into the fears of the tin-foil hat set who can point to these very scary power grabs and say, ‘See? He really is coming to get us.’”

The White House on Wednesday released 94 pages of emails between top administration and intelligence officials who helped shape the talking points about the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that the CIA would provide to policymakers in both the legislative and executive branches.

The documents, first reported by THE WEEKLY STANDARD in articles here and here, directly contradict claims by White House press secretary Jay Carney and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the revisions of those talking points were driven by the intelligence community and show heavy input from top Obama administration officials, particularly those at the State Department.

The emails provide further detail about the rewriting of the talking points during a 24-hour period from midday September 14 to midday September 15. As THE WEEKLY STANDARD previously reported, a briefing from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shows that the big changes came in three waves – internally at the CIA, after email feedback from top administration officials, and during or after a meeting of high-ranking intelligence and national security officials the following morning.

In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the IRS in 90 days, no questions asked.

That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn’t be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months.

In that time, the IRS approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows.

As applications from conservative groups sat in limbo, groups with liberal-sounding names had their applications approved in as little as nine months. With names including words like “Progress” or “Progressive,” the liberal groups applied for the same tax status and were engaged in the same kinds of activities as the conservative groups.

In the phone-snooping case, Obama didn’t even stir from his stool. Instead, he had his press secretary, former Time magazine journalist Jay Carney, go before an incensed press corps Tuesday afternoon and explain why the president will not be involving himself in his Justice Department’s trampling of press freedoms.

“Other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the Justice Department to seek phone records of the Associated Press,” Carney announced.

"We had a full-blown audit in 2011 and it cost us hundreds of hours to defend," Morgan said, adding that she has faced IRS inquiries or audits dating back to the Clinton years. "But I never had a problem during the Bush administration."

On Monday, the popular morning host on KSFO 560 radio told her audience that the unfolding scandal involving the federal tax agency has produced a rare moment in American politics: Activists on the right and left are unified in their anger over IRS tactics that remind them of Republican President Richard Nixon's famed "enemies list."

"I think both liberals and conservatives can always agree... that we cherish our privacy," Morgan, who co-founded the conservative Sacramento grassroots activist group Move America Forward, said Monday. "I really believe that liberals don't like government intrusion - we feel the same way."

The brouhaha began Friday after the IRS, responding to complaints from conservatives, admitted making "mistakes" in singling out groups with "tea party" or "patriot" labels for special attention on their applications for tax-exempt status, starting in 2010 and continuing through the run-up to the 2012 election.

The IRS acknowledged that most of the investigations were done by a division of the agency that oversees the burgeoning number of applications for nonprofit, tax-exempt political groups - which range from conservative Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS to Organizing for America, the offshoot of the Obama re-election effort.

San Francisco radio talk show host Melanie Morgan, and a founder of Tea Part group Move America Forward, believes she was targeted by the IRS. Photographed in her home on Monday, May 13, 2013 in Novato, Calif. Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle

The agency initially said the disputed practices, which it said ran contrary to IRS protocol and had been suspended, appear to have been limited to agents in the agency's Cincinnati offices. On Monday, the agency acknowledged that senior officials in Washington were aware in May 2012 that some groups were being targeted, the Washington Post reported.

An angry president

At a news conference Monday, an angry President Obama said that if the IRS was "intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous - and there's no place for it."

Obama's sentiments, which Morgan echoed, are shared by other liberals.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, one of the most liberal members of the California Legislature, on Monday condemned the tax agency's targeting of conservative groups.

"During the Bush administration, there were reports of the IRS going after liberal churches," Ammiano said. "Now, there are indications of an attempt to target political groups on the right."

Ammiano added: "The IRS works for taxpayers who have all kinds of political opinions, and the IRS needs to target tax abuse, not opinion. They shouldn't skew audits to one side or the other."

Becky Bond, vice president and political director of Credo, a liberal group in San Francisco that has organized protests against plans to build the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas, said activists on the left are concerned about "dark money," undisclosed contributions to political action committees that are spent on issue advocacy, much of it surrounding elections.

"We'd like to see the IRS put time into enforcing the very few rules we have" regarding such organizations, she added. "It's totally disconcerting that they're spending time on a political witch hunt."

Gabe Rottman, legislative counsel and policy adviser for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, agreed with Morgan that that outrage has fired up activists across the political spectrum. Rottman said both sides have felt the sting of abuses under Democratic and Republican administrations.

Targets of abuse

"It's not just Nixon targeting the far left, it's Kennedy targeting the far right.... Under Clinton, it was Paula Jones and the Heritage Foundation," he said. "Everyone has a stake" in seeing that the government doesn't target groups or individuals because of political activity, he said.

While Obama's condemnation of the IRS' activity is welcome, Rottman said it doesn't go far enough. "It's quite possible these career staffers in Cincinnati did this not even realizing this is very troubling under the Constitution. The lack of oversight and bright-line rules is a big problem."

Morgan said the IRS' examinations of political groups have had an enormous effect on grassroots activists.

At Move America Forward, a nonprofit charitable organization to help U.S. troops abroad, "they had an IRS agent sitting in the office every single day for a year. It was a nightmare," she said.

Morgan, who is affiliated with other conservative groups including the Tea Party Express, founded by consultant Sal Russo of Sacramento, said such groups raise money from individuals in $5 and $10 increments and must spend large sums to defend themselves against audits.

"I can't prove that it was something that the IRS targeted me for," Morgan said of the audit two years ago, "but I'm going to get a lawyer and investigate it," she said. "And if it's true, I'm going to sue the IRS."

On a lighter note, Morgan added that the IRS' latest targeting of conservative political groups may prove conservatives right on one thing.

"Liberals have mocked us over this paranoia," she said. "It turns out, sometimes paranoids do have enemies."

Carla Marinucci is The San Francisco Chronicle's senior political writer. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.@cmarinucci

President Obama’s angry dismissal of the growing outcry over the handling of last year’s Benghazi terrorist attack that left a U.S. ambassador dead shows all the signs of a White House in “damage control” mode, critics say.

“They are in damage control, and this story is now gaining traction because people are now talking about it even more,” said Richard Benedetto, an American University political science professor and former White House correspondent for USA Today. “This story to me has all the makings of a Watergate kind of story. What did they know and when did they know it, and what did people in the White House do to cover it up?”

The Islamic Society of Boston, the mosque attended by Boston Marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokar Tsarnaev, posted an article on its website in September 2004 that advocated for the beating of women as a last resort to force them to behave.

“Hinting at punishment is an effective means of discipline, so the reason for hanging up a whip or stick in the house was explained in another report, where the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: ‘Hang up the whip where the members of the household can see it, for this is more effective in disciplining them,’” the article states.

Related: IRS Scrutiny Was Deeper Than Thought. “Government investigators have found that the Internal Revenue Service scrutinized conservative groups for raising political concerns over government spending, debt and taxes or even for advocating making America a better place to live, according to new details likely to inflame a widening IRS controversy. The latest details about the IRS handling of applications for tax-exempt status by tea party, patriot and other conservative groups in recent years were provided to congressional investigators by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The findings were reviewed Sunday by The Wall Street Journal.”

When it became clear last fall that the CIA’s now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, the White House said repeatedly the document were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story. ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensive edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.

Despite the agony they endured, the three women held hostage in Cleveland likely forged bonds—possibly a key factor in their escape, criminal psychologists tell Christine Pelisek.

During their long years in captivity, amid the brutal beatings and rapes, the three women had no choice but to rely on each other.

Michelle Knight acted as midwife when Amanda Berry gave birth to their kidnapper’s child, administering an amateur form of CPR when the baby stopped breathing, according to a police report. This week, when the trio finally escaped their living hell, Gina DeJesus proudly showed off a drawing by the girl, now 6 years old, as if she were a doting aunt.

(L-R) Gina DeJesus; Michelle Knight; Amanda Berry. (AP;Knight Family)

No one will truly know what kind of relationships the three women formed while they were held hostage for a decade in the home of former school bus driver Ariel Castro. Perhaps they were wary of each other, or too desensitized to connect on any level. More likely, they forged a sort of tragic sisterhood.

The Republicans mishandled the Benghazi whistleblowers’ hearing. What should have been stretched across several days to give the nation time to digest it all, was instead packed into a single day filled with an overwhelming amount of information. The media’s attention span is not that long. The verdict in the Jodi Arias trial came along in the afternoon and blew Benghazi off the networks, most of which didn’t want to cover it at all. Even Fox joined the drive-by media, taking Benghazi off the air in favor of the irrelevant Arias trial. Following the announcement of the Arias verdict, charges were read in the Cleveland kidnapping case. Those were aired live as well, relegating Benghazi again.

Nevertheless, for those who slogged through the entire day of hearings and ignored local crime stories, new information was there to be learned.

1. There were multiple stand-down orders, not just one. Special operations forces were told, twice, by their chain of command not to board aircraft to Benghazi to rescue the Americans then under attack. The U.S. deputy diplomat, Greg Hicks, testified that the military commander, Lt. Col. Gibson, had his team ready to go twice. They were on the runway about to board a flight to Benghazi in the middle of the attack. They were ordered to stand down and remain in Tripoli to receive wounded who would be coming out of Benghazi. One of the orders came in the middle of the attack, the other came toward the end after Hicks’ team had traveled from Tripoli to Benghazi. The fact that Hicks’ team was able get to Benghazi before the end of the assault strongly suggests that the special operations team could have made a real difference.

At the same time, the State Department’s commander on the scene, Hicks, ordered his personnel into Benghazi and went there himself. Hicks testified that Gibson never told him who issued the stand-down orders. He commented that Gibson told him that the military stand-down was a shock: “This is the first time in my career that a diplomat has more balls than someone in the military.”

Hicks also testified that the U.S. government never even requested military overflight to support the Americans in Benghazi. The U.S. had an unarmed drone overhead and could have gotten permission to fly fighters over the scene, at least, but never asked.

2. Ambassador Stevens’ reason for going to Benghazi has been cleared up. Hicks testified that Ambassador Stevens traveled to Benghazi to fulfill one of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s wishes. Despite the fact that security was worsening in Benghazi for months leading up to the 9-11 attack, Clinton wanted to make the post there permanent. Her State Department had denied repeated requests from the U.S. team in Libya to upgrade security there, but she wanted to use the permanent post as a symbol of goodwill. Stevens was committed to that goal and told Clinton he would “make it happen.” He was in Benghazi on 9-11 furthering Clinton’s goal. She had denied requests to beef up security at Benghazi and then blamed his death on a YouTube movie. Hicks’ testimony raises the question of Clinton’s competence and grasp on reality, strongly suggesting that she put political perceptions ahead of the facts on the ground in Benghazi.

3. Clinton was briefed at 2 am on the night of the attack, was never told that a movie had anything to do with the attack by those on the ground in Libya, yet blamed the movie anyway. Hicks also testified that he was shocked when Ambassador Susan Rice blamed a YouTube movie for inspiring the 9-11 attack. He testified that he had briefed Secretary Clinton directly via phone at 2 a.m. and told her that Benghazi was a terrorist attack. He never mentioned a YouTube video, which he never once believed had anything to do with the attack. But Clinton shocked him by blaming the movie on Sept 12. She would blame it, again, while standing before the coffins of the slain Americans, on Sept. 14. During the attack, Clinton told Hicks that no help would be on the way to relieve the Americans under sustained assault.

4. Whistleblowers were intimidated into silence. Hicks testified to a pattern of behavior that leads to the reasonable conclusion that many officials within the State Department wanted him to remain silent after the Benghazi attack. He said that on the night of the attack he was personally commended both by Secretary Clinton and President Barack Obama. But he later questioned why Ambassador Rice blamed the YouTube movie, and from that point on his superior, Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Beth Jones, questioned his “management style” and told him directly that no one in State should want him on their team in the field again. He was eventually demoted to a desk job after having been deputy to Ambassador Stevens, and remains in that post. Hick also testified that the Accountability Review Board, convened by Clinton last fall allegedly to determine the facts of the attack, never had stenographers in the room during his tw0-hour interview. Nordstrom concurred. Thompson was not even allowed to testify to the ARB despite having direct knowledge of the attacks due to his position on the U.S. Foreign Emergency Support Team. Thompson testified that the FEST was designed to go from zero to wheels up very quickly but was not deployed at all. He wanted to tell his story to the ARB, but was not allowed to. Hicks also testified that for the first time in his career, the State Department assigned a lawyer/minder to attend witness interviews with the ARB. He also testified that Jones told him not to be personally interviewed by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Republican House member who was investigating the attack on behalf of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee. It all adds up to a pattern of witness control and intimidation.

5. “The YouTube movie was a non-event in Libya.” Hicks directly testified that the YouTube movie, for which a man remains in jail, was not in any way relevant to the attack in Benghazi. Why Obama, Clinton, Rice et al blamed that movie for the attack remains an unanswered question. Hicks said that no American on the ground in Libya that night believed the movie was to blame. He also testified that there was no protest prior to the attack. When the attack began, he was in Tripoli. He texted Stevens, who was in Benghazi, to advise him of the riot in Cairo at the U.S. embassy. In that riot, jihadists had stormed the walls and replaced the American flag with the black flag of Islam. Stevens had not been aware of the Cairo situation at all, but shortly after Hicks texted him about it, Stevens called and told Hicks that the Benghazi consulate was under attack. He never mentioned a protest.

Hicks also testified that blaming the movie had strongly adverse real-world effects. According to him, it humiliated Libya’s president, who had correctly stated that Benghazi was a terrorist attack. Blaming the movie, Hicks said, did “immeasurable damage” to our relations with Libya and delayed the FBI investigation. On Sept. 12, Ambassador Susan Rice told the first of her many untruths, claiming in an email that the FBI investigation into the attack was already underway. It would not actually get underway for 17 days after the attack, by which time the scene of the attack had been compromised and contaminated.

We still do not know who decided to change the original CIA talking points and blame the movie, but the finger is pointing directly at Hillary Clinton. She was briefed by Hicks during the attack, the movie was never mentioned, but in her first public statement on September 12, she blamed the movie. Her subordinate, Ambassador Susan Rice, also blamed the movie the following weekend. The fact that Obama himself blamed the movie repeatedly, though, strongly suggests that he took part in the decision as well.

6. Democrats were uninterested in getting at most of the facts, but were very interested in destroying Mark Thompson. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) set the tone for the Democrats’ angle on the hearings in his opening remarks. He used his opening to attack the committee chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, and to pre-question the witnesses. Most of the Democrats who followed him failed to ask many questions of the witnesses. Instead, they delivered speeches or blamed budget cuts, an argument that has already been debunked by the State Department itself. One sadly hilarious moment came during Rep. William Clay’s questioning. The Missouri Democrat blamed the repeated denials to enhance security at Benghazi on budget cuts. Issa reminded him that the State Department has debunked that line, in the person of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Charlene Lamb. She testified last fall that budget cuts had not impacted the decisions not to enhance security at Benghazi. Clay claimed not to remember Lamb’s testimony, then moved quickly to cite the ARB, which backed his side. His selective memory proved politically, if not factually, reliable.

Mark Thompson, member of the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST) testified that his section had been cut out of decision making during the attack. The Democrats consistently circled on him to try to get him to contradict himself or attack his boss, Daniel Benjamin, who has claimed FEST was included throughout the attack. They never really succeeded, and now Benjamin will be called to testify in a future hearing to clear up the dispute. The heads of the ARB, Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Michael Mullen, will now be called as well.

7. House hearings are a poor way to determine who did what and why during and after the attack. The Republicans, as I said, should have broken today’s hearing out across several days. When they did question the witnesses, they kept their speeches short and focused on getting answers. Their Democratic counterparts consistently gave speeches and raised red herrings. They were able to waste time and stall long enough for the Arias trial to push the hearing off the TV, and for energy to flag and boredom to set in. The Benghazi attack needs to be properly investigated by someone outside the political process and outside the Obama administration. State cannot be trusted; its own investigation failed even to interview Clinton. Defense may also have officers and political appointees to protect. A special prosecutor is in order and should be appointed.

“Longevity runs in my family, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my natural life in one place,” a tearful Arias told Fox affiliate KSAZ. “I believe death is the ultimate freedom, and I’d rather have my freedom as soon as I can get it.”

Jurors are reconvening this afternoon to begin the penalty phase, which could determine if Arias gets her wish, or receives 25 years to life in prison.

Hundreds of people gathered outside the Maricopa County Superior Courthouse to hear the verdict. They broke into cheers and, bizarrely, chanted “USA! USA!”

Arias was convicted of the grisly June 2008 killing after a trial that included raw testimony about kinky sex and her claims of domestic violence and mental abuse by the victim.

Alexander, 30, a charismatic motivational speaker and salesman, was stabbed 27 times and then shot in the head during a frenzied attack.

Prosecutors said Arias planned the murder in a jealous rage after Alexander dumped her.

Arias at first denied any involvement, and later concocted a story blaming the killing on mysterious masked intruders. But two years after her arrest, she finally admitted that she had killed her lover — claiming he attacked her after a day of rough sex in his Mesa, Ariz., home.

Upping the ante this cycle, Virginia Republicans, for their gubernatorial standard-bearer, have tapped the proudly inflammatory Ken Cuccinelli, who has used his reign as state attorney general to, among other notable hits, crusade against climate change and on behalf of the state’s recently junked anti-sodomy laws. For a party struggling to dispel its reputation as a bastion of right-wing nuttery, putting Cuccinelli front and center is a bit like tapping Mitt Romney to dispel the GOP’s rep as a bastion of rich old white guys.

"...Hoping to funnel into one chronological timeline the rampantly varying accounts of how President Obama's administration responded last Sept. 11 in the wake of an attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday will hear from three "whistleblowers" expected to offer testimony enormously at odds with the administration's characterization of a strike that killed four Americans.

Testifying are Mark Thompson, acting deputy assistant Secretary of State for counterterrorism; Greg Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya; and Eric Nordstrom, former regional security officer in Libya. Excerpts of an interview Hicks did with investigators that were released to CBS News' "Face the Nation" on Sunday boomeranged the Benghazi politics back into the spotlight four months after hearings on the issue in the House and Senate.

According to Hicks, "everybody in the mission" believed it was an act of terror "from the get-go." But on Sept. 16 - five days after the attack - U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice hit the Sunday show circuit, peddling the theory that the strike began "spontaneously" out of protests in Egypt and was not a premeditated terrorist act. Rice's spot on "Face the Nation" that day was preceded by the new president of Libya, Mohammed al-Magariaf, who said his government had "no doubt that this was pre-planned, predetermined."

"I've never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day," Hicks told investigators of Rice's appearances.

The top official in Libya after Amb. Chris Stevens died in the attack, Hicks said he was never consulted about the administration's talking points that puppeteered Rice's remarks: "I was personally known to one of Rice's staff members," he said. "Even on Sunday morning, I could have been called, and, you know, the phone call could have been, 'Hey, Greg, Amb. Rice is going to say blah, blah, blah,' and I could have said, 'No, that's not the right thing.' That phone call was never made."

Administration officials have staunchly stood by Rice, whose vilification after the attack cost her top billing on the short list to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. At a Tuesday night gala at which Rice was receiving an award, Vice President Joe Biden said she had "the absolute, total, complete confidence of the president."

Critics, though, of the Benghazi "cover-up" have continued to rally attention to the White House's bungled talking points, as well as reports that the State Department deliberately declined requests for additional security in Benghazi.

Play Video

Issa: "No question" Clinton's circle involved in Benghazi "cover-up"

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who will oversee Wednesday's hearing, told CBS News on Monday that the administration's ever-evolving statements were likely perpetrated by political concerns, three weeks out of a major election. Or, he suggested, "it could be a general want to believe that we're closer to an end of the war on terror than right in the middle of it."

Issa said he expects this week to find someone from Clinton's circle - if not the former secretary of state herself - at the heart of covering tracks after any missteps by the administration. Clinton testified on Benghazi in January before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where she took responsibility but conceded there was no "clear picture" of what happened Sept. 11 as the situation unraveled.

"If Hillary Clinton is not responsible for the before, during and after mistakes... it's somebody close," Issa said. "There certainly are plenty of people close to the former secretary who knew, and apparently were part of the problem."

Those close to Clinton who may have engaged in "deliberately, premeditated lying to the American people," Issa said, could include Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy or Beth Jones, acting assistant secretary for near eastern affairs at the State Department. Hicks said one day after Rice's media blitz, he called Jones to inquire about the source for the ambassador's statements; the tone of her answer - "I don't know," he continued - indicated that "I perhaps asked a question that I should not have asked."

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Benghazi investigation: How high are the stakes for Obama?

Earlier this week, Fox News reported that Thompson plans to testify Wednesday that Clinton attempted to cut out the counterterrorism bureau from communications about the attack - a charge that would likely cripple her pristine record as secretary, as well as any chance that she'll mount a presidential bid in 2016.

Citing in particular Hicks's claim that a team of Special Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi during the attack was forbidden from doing so by U.S. Special Operations Command Africa, CBS News national security analyst Juan Zarate said during a Tuesday edition of "Flash Points" that the reputation of the administration, as a whole, hangs in the lurch.

"The stakes are pretty high," Zarate said. "If it turns out that there's some indication that the White House or others were not only manipulating talking points, framing how Susan Rice was talking about this on the Sunday talk shows, but was actually trying to construe this in a way that demonstrated it wasn't a terror attack, and that actually impacted our response - the fact that perhaps they didn't put things in motion was because it was purposely not being treated or discussed as a terror attack from the get-go, that's a real problem."

A source with intimate information about the events that happened on the ground in Benghazi the night the U.S. Consulate and the CIA annex was attacked by terrorists told Breitbart News that, ultimately, only the President of the United States, or someone acting on his authority, could have prevented Special Forces either on the ground or nearby from helping those Americans who were under deadly assault.

According to the source, when the attack on the Consulate occurred, a specific chain of command to gain verbal permission to move special-forces in must have occurred. SOCAFRICA commander Lieutenant Col. Gibson would have contacted a desk officer at the time, asking for that permission.

“Ham answers directly to the President of the United States,” said the source. It wasn’t a low-level bureaucrat making the call, the source adamantly added.

That call may have been made early in the engagement. Both Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey testified in January that they had no further communication with President Barack Obama after an initial briefing in the early hours of the Benghazi crisis, which continued through the night.

But what about then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton?

“I have a hard time thinking it was Hillary alone. Hillary may have tried to circumvent the counterterrorism board and deal with this. I think in order for her to tell General Ham, ‘No, you’re not going to get involved,' she would have had to talk to the president. The president would have had to say, ‘No, take your commands from Hillary.’ He would have had said something, because Ham does not work for the Department of State; he works directly for the president,” the source explained.

The lack of clarity surrounding orders given during the Benghazi attacks is a stark contrast to the clarity projected after the successful Osama bin Laden raid in May 2011, when administration officials were keen to attribute responsibility for the orders to the president.

Witnesses with firsthand information about the Benghazi attacks will appear before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

State Department employees Mark Thompson, Gregory Hicks, and Eric Nordstrom are expected to be whistleblower witnesses who will reveal information about State’s reaction to the attacks that has not been released previously.

When it first became clear that the CIA’s Benghazi talking points had been altered, many of us viewed the White House as the prime suspect. After all, it served President Obama’s political purposes to claim, at the height of a political campaign in which he was taking credit for the fall of al Qaeda, that the death of a U.S. ambassador was down to spontaneous outrage over a video, rather than pre-planned terrorism. It turns out, however, that the State Department was the prime culprit. It was State that pushed back hard against the original talking points.

Three girls who were abducted more than a decade ago have been found alive in the basement of a house in Ohio - where they were apparently held captive in chains.

Amanda Berry, 26, and Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32, escaped from the Cleveland house just a few miles from the city where they disappeared.

The extraordinary rescue came after a neighbor heard Amanda, who went missing at the age of 16, screaming for help when their captor left the house.

Ariel Castro, 52, has been arrested and is in police custody in connection with the kidnapping case along with his two unnamed brothers, who are 50 and 54.

Amanda's relatives have confirmed that one of the children in the house is her daughter that she gave birth to while being held against her will; the girl is thought to be aged about six.

Scroll down for videos and audio of the 911 call

Discovery: Amanda Berry, 26, (left) and Gina DeJesus (right), 23, were found alive in a house in Cleveland after being missing for 10 years. Berry disappeared aged 16, while DeJesus went missing at 14

Reunited: Amanda Berry (centre) at the Cleveland Hospital alongside her emotional sister (left) and the daughter that she gave birth to during the 10 years she was held against her will

Scene: The women were helped out of this home on Seymour Avenue that belongs to Ariel Castro

Arrested: The prime suspect has been identified as 52-year-old Ariel Castro

The women and child were taken to MetroHealth Medical Center, as they are reportedly suffering from severe dehydration and slightly malnourished but alive.

The disappearances of Amanda and Gina captured the attention of the entire city for the past decade, as their relatives have continually held vigils and kept the story alive in the local press.

The women were kidnapped on the same street and found at the home just three miles away as their alleged kidnappers hid in plain sight.

After 10 years being held against their will, the women were finally freed after neighbor Charles Ramsey, heard screaming from the house as he sat down to eat a meal in his home.

Mr Ramsey, told WEWS-TV he saw Amanda, who he didn't recognize, at a door that would open only enough to fit a hand through screaming, 'Help me get out! I've been in here a long time.'

'We had to kick open the bottom,' he said. 'Lucky on that door it was aluminum. It was cheap. She climbed out with her daughter.'

When Amanda fled the home and ran across the street to call police, she was holding the hand of a young girl.

'Help me I'm Amanda Berry... I've been kidnapped and I've been missing for ten years and I'm here. I'm free now,' Berry is heard saying in the call to police that has been publicly released.

House of horror: Aerial views of a house on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio where the three women were held captive for 10 years

Shocked: Neighbors have voiced their shock at finding out the women were living in the basement of the Ohio home

Prison: Cleveland Police stand outside a home where the trio spent more than a decade in captivity

Combing: Cleveland police and FBI agents search a yard. There were apparently signs that dirt had recently been moved in the backyard of the house

Escape: A neighbor managed to kick down a door at the home, pictured, freeing the women

'HELP ME! I'M AMANDA BERRY!': VICTIM'S FRANTIC 911 CALL

Amanda Berry: Help me, I'm Amanda Berry.

Operator: Do you need police, fire or ambulance?

Berry: I need police.

Operator: OK, and what's going on there?

Berry: I've been kidnapped, and I've been missing for 10 years. And I'm here. I'm free now.

Operator: OK, and what's your address?

(The operator tries to figure out where she is.)

Berry: I'm across the street. I'm using their phone

Operator: OK, stay there with those neighbors and talk to the police when they get there.

(The operator repeats her instructions several times.)

Berry: OK, are they on their way right now? I need them now.

Operator: We're gonna send them as soon as we get a car open.

Berry: No, I need them now before he gets back.

Operator: All right. We're sending them, OK?

Berry: OK. I mean, like, right now.

Operator: Who is the guy who went out?

Berry: His name is Ariel Castro.

Operator: All right. How old is he?

Berry: He's like 52.

Operator: All right, and a...

Berry: And I'm Amanda Berry. I've been on the news for the last 10 years.

Operator: OK, I got that, dear... what is his name again?

Berry: Uh, Ariel Castro.

Operator: And is he white, black or Hispanic?

Berry: Uh, he's Hispanic.

Operator: What's he wearing?

Berry: I don't know cause he's not here right now. That's how we got away.

Operator: When he left, what was he wearing?

Berry: (Indistinguishable)

Operator: The police are on the way. Talk to them when they get there.

Berry: OK.

'I need them now before he gets back!' she said in the frantic phone call to 911, going on to identify her captor as Ariel Castro.

The Plain Dealer reported that Castro was arrested at a nearby McDonald's.

Castro has lived in the house since 1992 and he was arrested for domestic violence in 1993.

Sources close to local station WOIO are telling the station that the women were reportedly tied up during their captivity and police found chains hanging from one of the ceilings

They also reported that there were signs that dirt had recently been moved in the backyard of the house, though police continue to investigate whether or not the dirt will lead to any new evidence in the case.

Michelle went missing in 2000 when she was 20.

Amanda disappeared on April 21, 2003, a day before her 17th birthday.

A year after Gina, then 14 went missing on April 2, 2004, on her way home from school.

Amanda disappeared shortly after she called her sister to say that she was getting a ride home from her job at Burger King.

Amanda's mother, Louwana Miller, who had been hospitalized for months with pancreatitis and other ailments, died in March 2006.

She had spent the previous three years looking for her daughter, whose disappearance took a toll as her health steadily deteriorated, family and friends said.

In November 2004, she even turned to a psychic, Sylvia Browne, on Montel Williams' television show.

'I always said it from the beginning; she was sold to the highest bidder,' Ms Ruiz said in April 2012.

The disappearance of Knight did not attract the local media attention of the Berry and DeJesus cases.

Her grandmother, Deborah Knight, told the Plain Dealer that some family members had concluded, based in part on suggestions by police and social workers at the time, that she had run away.

But her mother Barbara Knight, who now lives in Florida, told the newspaper she never believed her daughter would have vanished without a trace on her own and that she kept searching long after police gave up looking for her.

'I'm praying that if it is her, she will come back with me, so I can help her recover from what she has been through,' the mother was quoted as saying.

Rescue: Neighbour Charles Ramsey said he had seen a woman screaming for help at the front door of the house and broke the door down

'So much has happened in these 10 years. She has a younger sister she still has not met.'

Relatives were emotional throughout the night on Monday, with some unable to speak through their tears.

Before the kidnapping: Gina was 14 when she vanished on the way home from school in 2004

Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson was the first public official to speak out about the case, confirming the identities of the three women.

'I am thankful that Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight have been found alive. We have many unanswered questions regarding this case and the investigation will be ongoing. Again, I am thankful that these three young ladies are found and alive,' he said.

Charles Ramsey, the neighbor who rescued the girls, said that he was shocked about the discovery because the man who owns the home - who is thought to be the kidnapper- did not stay hidden from those around him.

'I've been here a year. I barbeque with this dude, we eat ribs and what not and listen to salsa music.

Not a clue that that girl was in that house or that anyone else was in there with,' Mr Ramsey said of Castro.

Search: Authorities have been searching for the missing girls for years; pictured are the computer-generated images of what Gina, left, and Amanda, right, were believed to have looked like now

Hope: Felix DeJesus, holding a banner showing his daughter's photograph, standing by a memorial in his living room in Cleveland in 2004

KIDNAPPED CHILDREN FOUND ALIVE

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who have been rescued from a home in Cleveland after a decade in captivity, are not the first American kidnap victims to be found safe long after their abduction.

Jaycee Lee Dugard's case is perhaps the most extreme of all - she was missing for 18 years after being kidnapped aged 11, and bore two daughters to her captor.

The girl was abducted on her way to schoo by Phillip Garrido South Lake Tahoe, California in June 1991. Her identity was revealed when he behaved erratically in public, attracting police attention.

Elizabeth Smart was another high-profile kidnap victim who was eventually rescued after she spent nine months in captivity.

She was taken from her bedroom in Salt Lake City, Utah in June 2002, aged 14 - the abduction was witnessed by her sister Mary Katherine, who shared the room.

Danielle Cramer, who was discovered in June 2007 after being missing for almost a year, was another kidnap victim.

Adam Gault and Ann Murphy hid her at their home in West Bloomfield, Connecticut after she ran away from her family.

She was found locked in a small space under a staircase, but police later suggested that she could have plotted with her kidnappers.

Shawn Hornbeck, from Richwoods, Missouri, was missing for more than four years, from October 2002 to January 2007.

He was abducted aged 11 by paedophile Michael J. Devlin while riding his bicycle, and held at the kidnapper's home nearby.

Devlin tortured him until he agreed to do anything he asked, then used the boy for his own sexual pleasure over the following years.

An earlier high-profile kidnapping was that of Steven Stayner, kidnapped in Merced, California at the age of seven in 1972 and found in March 1980.

Kenneth Parnell pretended to be the boy's father and enrolled him in school, but was secretly molesting him and convinced him he had been abandoned by his parents.

When Steven escaped aged 14, he also managed to rescue another victim of Parnell, five-year-old Timmy White.

'He's somebody you look and then you look away because he's just doing normal stuff.

'You got some big testicles to pull this one off because we see this guy every day,' he told NewsNet5.

Local news reporters told CNN that Castro is said to have worked as a bus driver for the Cleveland Metropolitan schools, though it is unclear whether that was the case when the women were kidnapped.

He was a school bus driver in the Cleveland area and was let go after taking a school bus home, according to local reports.

No matter what happens with Darrell Issa’s congressional committee meetings this week, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the Obama administration, and the cause is Benghazi. It’s impossible to underestimate the blowback that has been gathering steam for the past seven months, now about to erupt with full force. Few reputations will emerge unscathed, Obama’s presidency will be crippled, Hillary Clinton‘s 2016 candidacy will be destroyed — and perhaps some new heroes will be born. My New York Post column on Friday, which was also linked at RealClearPolitics, sets the stage: On Wednesday

San Francisco Threatened By Typhoid Fever. “Antibiotics are used to treat typhoid, which may last up to two weeks even with treatment. If left untreated, up to 20 percent of patients may die and the illness may last for months. It is important to finish the course of treatment because patients remain contagious after symptoms disappear. There is a typhoid vaccine available for travelers to regions where the illness is common.”

On the night of Sept. 11, as the Obama administration scrambled to respond to the Benghazi terror attacks, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a key aide effectively tried to cut the department's own counterterrorism bureau out of the chain of reporting and decision-making, according to a "whistle-blower" witness from that bureau who will soon testify to the charge before Congress, Fox News has learned.

That witness is Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine and now the deputy coordinator for operations in the agency’s counterterrorism bureau. Sources tell Fox News Thompson will level the allegation against Clinton during testimony on Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Fox News has also learned that another official from the counterterrorism bureau -- independently of Thompson -- voiced the same complaint about Clinton and Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy to trusted national security colleagues back in October.

Extremists linked to Al Qaeda stormed the American consulate and a nearby annex on Sept. 11, in a heavily armed and well-coordinated eight-hour assault that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans.

Thompson considers himself a whistle-blower whose account was suppressed by the official investigative panel that Clinton convened to review the episode, the Accountability Review Board (ARB). Thompson's lawyer, Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney, has further alleged that his client has been subjected to threats and intimidation by as-yet-unnamed superiors at State, in advance of his cooperation with Congress.

Sources close to the congressional investigation who have been briefed on what Thompson will testify tell Fox News the veteran counterterrorism official concluded on Sept. 11 that Clinton and Kennedy tried to cut the counterterrorism bureau out of the loop as they and other Obama administration officials weighed how to respond to -- and characterize -- the Benghazi attacks.

"You should have seen what (Clinton) tried to do to us that night," the second official in State's counterterrorism bureau told colleagues back in October. Those comments would appear to be corroborated by Thompson's forthcoming testimony.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called the counterterrorism officials' allegation "100 percent false." A spokesman for Clinton said tersely that the charge is not true.

“It’s very stressful and very intense for me. And to have people questioning my motives and taking aim at me because people get sick and die, because they have a life threatening disease, then I have to take blame for that?”

He added, “Treating addiction is treating addiction and we had a program that was second to none. And we were good. We did it for 20 years.

I think we’re all agreed the president is fading—failing to lead, to break through, to show he’s not at the mercy of events but, to some degree at least, in command of them. He couldn’t get a win on gun control with 90% public support. When he speaks on immigration reform you get the sense he’s setting it back. He’s floundering on Syria. The looming crisis on implementation of ObamaCare has begun to fill the news. Even his allies are using the term “train wreck.” ObamaCare is not only the most slovenly written major law in modern American history, it is full of sneaked-in surprises people are just discovering. The Democrats of Washington took advantage of the country’s now-habitual distractedness: The country, now seeing what’s coming in terms of taxes and fees, will not be amused. Mr. Obama’s brilliant sequester strategy—scare the American public into supporting me—flopped. Congress is about to hold hearings on Boston and how the brothers Tsarnaev slipped through our huge law-enforcement and immigration systems. Benghazi and what appear to be its coverups drags on and will not go away; press secretary Jay Carney was reduced to saying it happened “a long time ago.” It happened in September. The economy is stuck in low-growth, employment in no-growth. The president has about a month to gather himself together on the budget, tax reform and an immigration deal before Congress goes into recess. What are the odds?

The Guardianis reporting that Chen Kegui, the nephew of anti-forced abortion activist Chen Guangcheng, has appendicitis and is being denied surgery. From the story:

Chen Kegui, whose activist uncle fled house arrest last year, is said to need life-saving appendicitis operation. Supporters and relatives fear for the life of the Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng’s jailed nephew after officials refused him medical parole for surgery. Chen Kegui was diagnosed with appendicitis last week and is receiving antibiotics from prison authorities, but his father said his appendix was suppurating and fears it will rupture if not removed. Prison officials have said they will arrange help but have given no details. The jail in Linyi, in eastern Shandong province, does not have the medical facilities for an operation.

If true, that is beyond cruel. It is a flagrant violation of human rights as a way of punishing Chen Guangcheng, and a warning to other would-be dissenters. Hello President Obama and Secretary Kerry? Are you paying attention?

A study released earlier today by the California Public Policy Center entitled “Calculating California’s Total State and Local Government Debt” has estimated that state and local government debt is somewhere between $848 billion and $1.12 trillion. This is the first [...]

"...The thought of the Koch brothers purchasing the Los Angeles Times so distressed staffers attending a recent in-house award ceremony that half of them raised their hands when asked if they would quit their jobs should the paper — which has come out of bankruptcy court and is very much for sale — fall into the two oil billionaires’ portfolio, the Huffington Post reported recently. . . .

Koch opponents fear they’ll turn the Los Angeles Times into a “conservative mouthpiece,” as one anonymous source put it to Media Matters’ Joe Strupp. Casting the Kochs as conservatives, which Garance Franke-Ruta (the Atlantic), Michael Wolff (USA Today) and David Horsey (Los Angeles Times) do in their recent pieces, makes them sound totally out of tune with cosmopolitan Los Angeles. Such a case can be made, of course, if you track the Kochs’ campaign donations and political philanthropy. They’ve given richly to Republican candidates and the party’s presidential nominee Mitt Romney, they’ve funded controversial climate science research and they’ve supported Tea Partiers.

But this portrait of the Kochs as proponents of smaller-than-small government and deregulation isn’t complete without a mention of their libertarian views — their long history of pairing fiscal conservatism with social liberalism. Politico acknowledged that wrinkle last year in a piece about David Koch in which he spoke in favor of gay marriage, defense cuts and military withdrawal from the Middle East. Hardly the views of a hard-core conservative. If these notions were smuggled into Los Angeles Times editorials or even (gasp!) news pages, would many of the city’s orthodox liberals reject them as propaganda?

Supporters of Barack Obama point to the overall jobless rate and its slow decline to argue that his economic policies have worked, and just need more time to bring back widespread prosperity. Opponents point to U-6 numbers and the actual number of net jobs created in his term (hint: less than zero) to argue that Obamanomics has been a failure. Who has the better argument? Consider a new analysis from the Washington Post, which shows just how bad the jobs situation has been all along:

The proportion of Americans in their prime working years who have jobs is smaller than it has been at any time in the 23 years before the recession, according to federal statistics, reflecting the profound and lasting effects that the downturn has had on the nation’s economic prospects.

By this measure, the jobs situation has improved little in recent years. The percentage of workers between the ages of 25 and 54 who have jobs now stands at 75.7 percent, just a percentage point over what it was at the downturn’s worst, according to federal statistics.

Before the recession the proportion hovered at 80 percent.

This captures the “missing workers” phenomenon, which the topline jobless rate ignores, and shows how poorly this recovery has performed. Even if one counts from the beginning of the recovery rather than from the beginning of Obama’s term, we have added 3.087 million private-sector jobs in the last 34 months, for an average of 90,079 jobs added per month — too low to keep up with population growth, which adds around 120,000 workforce-eligible adults each month. We aren’t even really treading water but falling behind slightly over that period.

As Peter Whoriskey hints, this has significant long-term implications for the American economy and policy, emphasis mine:

During their prime years, Americans are supposed to be building careers and wealth to prepare for their retirement. Instead, as the indicator reveals, huge numbers are on the sidelines. …

The falloff has been sharpest for men, for whom the proportion had been on a slow decline before the recession. The percentage of prime-age men who are working is smaller now than it has been in any time before the recession, going all the way back to 1948, according to federal statistics. The proportion of prime-age [working] women is at a low not seen since 1988.

What happens when this lost generation hits retirement age? They will not have acquired the wealth needed to retire; some of them might not have acquired the experience needed to support themselves as senior citizens in jobs, either. We will be facing either a public-assistance bomb or a generation that spent half of its time dependent on their parents and the other half dependent on their children. Likely it will be a mix of both.

Obamanomics is not working. The mix of economic and regulatory policy of this administration has been toxic to job creation. It’s time for a new direction.

Who’s buying the notion that Barack Obama is a fiscal conservative who’s engineered the slowest spending growth since Calvin Coolidge? Not the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, who gave the argument three Pinocchios in a fact-check yesterday, and not the Associated Press, either. In a fact-check of their own this morning, the AP’s Andrew Taylor reports that Obama’s “rosy claim” has a lot of problems — with Obama being first and foremost among them:

There’s also the question of how to treat the 2009 fiscal year, which actually began Oct. 1, 2008, almost four months before Obama took office. Typically, the remaining eight months get counted as part of the prior president’s spending since the incoming president usually doesn’t change it much until the following October. The MarketWatch analysis assigned 2009 to former President George W. Bush, though it gave Obama responsibility that year for a $140 million chunk of the 2009 stimulus bill.

But Obama’s role in 2009 spending was much bigger than that. For starters, he signed nine spending bills funding every Cabinet agency except Defense, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security. While the numbers don’t jibe exactly, Obama bears the chief responsibility for an 11 percent, $59 billion increase in non-defense spending in 2009. Then there’s a 9 percent, $109 billion increase in combined defense and non-defense appropriated outlays in 2010, a year for which Obama is wholly responsible.

So what’s the real picture? Spending sharply increased under Obama, and the rate only slowed down due to the influence of a Republican-controlled House:

If one assumes that TARP and the takeover of Fannie and Freddie by the government as one-time budgetary anomalies and remove them from calculations — an approach taken by Holtz-Eakin — you get the following picture:

—A 9.7 percent increase in 2009, much of which is attributable to Obama.

—A 7.8 percent increase in 2010, followed by slower spending growth over 2011-13. Much of the slower growth reflects the influence of Republicans retaking control of the House and their budget and debt deal last summer with Obama. All told, government spending now appears to be growing at an annual rate of roughly 3 percent over the 2010-2013 period, rather than the 0.4 percent claimed by Obama and the MarketWatch analysis.

The argument was always absurd on its face. The last fully Republican budget was FY2007, which came in at $2.77 trillion. The last Bush/Democrat budget was FY2008, which was $2.982 trillion. The FY2009 budget, which Obama signed into law and which was passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress, was $3.517 trillion with a $1.4 trillion deficit. That’s a year-on-year increase of nearly 18%, and those numbers come straight from the White House website. If you prefer the figures in percentage of GDP, as Kessler noted yesterday, we went from 20.8% of GDP in FY2008 to 25.2% in FY2009, which is an increase of 22% year on year.

Nor does it get any better. Using FY2008 as the baseline comparison, FY2010′s budget was $3.456 trillion, an increase of 15.88% over the last Bush/Democrat budget. FY2011′s $3.603 trillion budget was a 20.8% increase, and FY2012′s projected $3.795 trillion (the White House projection, mind you) is an increase of 27.26% over the last Bush budget — in just four budget years. An argument that this is a demonstration of fiscal discipline would have to come straight out of the pages of George Orwell’s 1984.

Troopathon V is a month-long care package drive that culminates in a star-studded

8-hour web-a-thon broadcast on July 12th from the Army Depot in Sacramento, CA.

Some Useful Facts About Troopathon:

Troopathon is a non-partisan non-political effort. We work with celebrities from Hollywood, television, the music industry, sports heroes and athletes, bloggers, journalists, radio personalities, academics, experts in the field, and elected officials to bring together a wide variety of guests to support our troops.

This year Troopathon is hosted by Melanie Morgan who continues to be a voice for our troops through her career behind the microphone at KSFO radio in San Francisco. She is joined by co-host S.E. Cupp, who is an author and commentator and has always been a supporter of the troops through many charitable causes.

This year’s program is dedicated to the memory of Andrew Breitbart, who was a guest host for the past 3 Troopathon broadcasts and a dedicated supporter of the troops. We will celebrate his life and honor the troops he gave so much of his time for.

Past Troopathons have included an amazing array of guests from every type of industry. Some of our notable past guests have included:

Gold Star Mom Debbie Lee

Current Navy SEALs

Michelle Malkin

Laura Ingraham

Lars Larson

Mark Levin

Andrea Shea King

Ann Coulter

Sean Hannity

Dr. Laura Schlessinger

Tammy Bruce

Sarah Palin

Charlie Daniels

John Ratzenberger

Kelsey Gramer

Gary Sinise

Jon Voight

Kevin Farley

John Ondrasik

Gavin DeGraw

Curtis Sliwa

Rush Limbaugh

Mike "Coach K" Krzyzewski

Greg Gutfield

Monica Crowley

Gerald McRaney

Buzz Aldrin

Robert Davi

Pat Sajak

Wayne Newton

Ambassador John Bolton

Dennis Miller

Past Troopathon events have raised over $3.6 million for our troops. Last year, Troopathon raised over $500,000 but we’d like to break that total this year!

Care Packages sponsored through Troopathon are the easiest way to donate to the troops. No running to the store, no confusing customs forms and postal regulations. Simply donate with your credit card and MAF’s team of dedicated volunteers will send the care packages on your behalf. It’s alsotax-deductible!

Each care package includes a special note written by the donor expressing their appreciation for the sacrifice our troops make. Packages can be sponsored for as low as $25 for a single serviceman, up to $1,000 for a Battalion Pack which will serve up to 60 soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen.

Troopathon happens on July 12, 2012 at 1PM Pacific time, 4PM Eastern live from the Army Depot in Sacramento, CA. You can view on www.troopathon.org. If you miss the 8 hour broadcast you can still find videos and information on the website right now, leading up to, and after the show.

We’re proud of the success we’ve had in fighting to make America an even greater nation. Unlike those who constantly criticize our great nation and our military men and women, we see a future where freedom and liberty create endless opportunities for Americans and our friends and allies in a more secure world.

Love is always being able to tell liberals I told you so. Ok, I don’t know if it’s love exactly, but man it sure does feel good. A few weeks ago, after West Virginia’s Democrat governor and US Senator both refused to endorse Obama for reelection in 2012, I wrote: Scores of Democrats running for reelection will defect from Obama before the campaign is done. And scores of Democrat voters will reject him too. Why? The same reason voters will likely vote to kick Obama out of the White House: self-interest, if not outright self-defense. Democrat Governor Earl Ray Tomblin of West

Love is always being able to tell liberals I told you so. Ok, I don’t know if it’s love exactly, but man it sure does feel good. A few weeks ago, after West Virginia’s Democrat governor and US Senator both refused to endorse Obama for reelection in 2012, I wrote: Scores of Democrats running for reelection will defect from Obama before the campaign is done. And scores of Democrat voters will reject him too. Why? The same reason voters will likely vote to kick Obama out of the White House: self-interest, if not outright self-defense. Democrat Governor Earl Ray Tomblin of West

One of President Barack Obama’s 35 campaign “co-chairs” partnered with a private equity firm frequently decried by progressives — Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) — to lay off workers at Del Monte Food Company. The revelation underscores the difficulty that Obama faces while trying to simultaneously slam Gov. Mitt Romney’s investment career and also spur donations from the many wealthy Democrats in the investment sector. After complaints from several Democrats, including Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Obama has changed his campaign-trail rhetoric

The San Francisco Tea Party went to the Redwood City fundraiser for the President's re-election effort. Tickets for the little people started at $38,000 dollars. Enjoy these photos from Jack Wallace, a KSFO listener.

The Fisher Houseis built and staffed specifically for the families of our service members and veterans to stay while their children, spouses or parents are undergoing surgical procedures or working through rehabilitation programs.

Currently, the hospital is unable to supply rooms for families on a guaranteed basis. With the cost of hotel rooms averaging close to $110.00 per night, plus the car rental fee and meals, the majority of families who live outside of the Bay Area are unable to afford to stay with their loved ones through this most difficult time.

Since the VAPAHCS Fisher House opened in April 2006, more than 1,100 families have stayed there free of charge. The average visit is 22 days, but many families reside there for six months to a year. One young wife with two small children has been there for eight months. Her husband, an Army sergeant, lost both legs and was severely brain injured by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq. When he arrived at the VA in Palo Alto, he was still in a coma. Now he is talking and actively participating in physical and speech therapies. Because of the Fisher House, his wife and children could stay with him throughout his arduous road to recovery.

Our Fisher House occupancy rate is on average 98 percent. We often need to house guests in nearby hotels because it is full. Fortunately, we have donated funds that help families pay their hotel bills and offset some of their commuting costs. However, the Fisher House is much, much more than just a free place to stay. It also serves as a haven for many of the families.

The wife of an injured Marine, just 21 years old, was eight months pregnant with their first baby when her husband was badly injured in Iraq. She arrived at Palo Alto knowing no one, but that didn’t last long. The other families at the Fisher House literally adopted her. VA ensured she had prenatal health care at Stanford Hospital, where she also delivered her baby. After her delivery she said, “I had so much attention, there was never a time I was sad or lonely. I wish everyone could have had the kind of family I had at the Fisher House. I felt so loved.”

There has been an extraordinary outpouring of support to the Fisher House from the community. Companies such as Wal-Mart, Safeway, Medicore and Target and organizations like the local Rotary Clubs, VFW and Blue Star Moms have given donations of food, money and presents to the families, not only during the holiday season, but also throughout the year. Many guests come here with very little other than a devotion to their loved one’s recovery.

Alan Armstrong, who works at the Fisher House, says that families frequently express that the Fisher House is a “true blessing.” The families are appreciative on so many levels. They can make home-cooked meals for their loved ones. When the injured service members become ambulatory, they come to the Fisher House and get relief from the hospital atmosphere. The families talk to each other and offer support that only someone in a similar situation can do. It even helps them to focus on another’s problems – distracting them from some of their own burdens for a time.

The houseguests have compared the VAPAHCS Fisher House to a 5-star hotel. “I’ve heard it again and again and again. From the standpoint of craftsmanship, décor and friendliness, people are just incredibly impressed,” said Mr. Armstrong. “One of the mothers recently said, ‘I have never stayed in a hotel this nice. I’ve seen pictures, but never been in one.’” In addition to the quality, of equal importance is the unique sense of comfort and genuine care from the staff and other families at the house; something you would not find in a 5-star hotel.

Another group who are thankful for the VAPAHCS Fisher House is VA staff, particularly our nurses and social workers. Prior to the Fisher House, staff constantly struggled over how to help these families in need. Our Hometel was only a partial solution and not one at all for families with children. The Fisher House has taken a huge burden off of our staff, allowing them to focus all their attention on their patients. The fact that a nurse on our Spinal Cord Injury Unit made the first donation of $5,000 to build the Fisher House, says a lot about the need.

Our financial goal was to raise $2.5 million, giving us the ability to build and furnish the home which will be capable of accommodating up to 15 families per night. The home will be equipped with all of the daily living necessities and have a full-time staff to care for the families staying there.

Ask a straight man, “How do you like your women?” and it’s unlikely he’ll answer, “Dumb and sleepy.” But according to new findings, these characteristics—and any other traits suggesting that the lady isn’t particularly alert—are precisely what the human male has evolved to look for in a one-night-stand.

In an article soon to be published in Evolution and Human Behavior, University of Texas–Austin graduate student Cari Goetz and her colleagues explored what they called the sexual exploitability hypothesis. The hypothesis is based on the differences between male and female reproductive strategies as humans evolved. For ancestral women, casual intercourse with an emotionally unattached man who had no clear intention of sticking around to raise any resulting offspring constituted a massive genetic gamble. By contrast, for a man with somewhere around 85 million sperm cells churned out every day—per testicle—the frivolous expenditure of gametes was far less detrimental to his genetic interests. Goetz and her team began with the assumption that—because our brains evolved long before prophylactics entered the picture—female cognition is still sensitive to the pregnancy-related consequences of uncommitted sex and women remain more reluctant than men to engage in it. They set out to test the idea that any indication that a woman’s guard is lowered—that she’s “sexually exploitable”—is a turn-on for your average man. “[T]he assessment of a woman’s immediate vulnerability,” surmise the authors, “may be central to the activation of psychological mechanisms related to sexual exploitation.”

Three fundraisers for the re-election campaign of President Barack Obama last night in the Bay Area.

....we don't know if THIS had anything to do with the President's visit, but...

A fighter jet was making low circles around San Francisco's Ferry Building and Embarcadero Center last night.

All the President's men (and women) were in place for face-time - if they could afford the 38 grand for ticket in Atherton.Later, the President motorcaded to the Fox Theatre for a "people's" visit which cost a mere $4,000.

But the area was filled with Tea Party protestors, too. although you wouldn't know it from the pathetic coverage by the San Francisco Chronicle:

"...Scores of protesters, most of them good-natured, greeted Obama in Redwood City. Among the signs: "The war on drugs is the war on the people," and "Hey Obama, don't deport my mama."

But James Lee, from Occupy Redwood City, came to protest because, he said, "we're most concerned with the amount of money being spent here."

"It should be the people out here who are inside with Obama," Lee said, "not just the people who have the money to be with him."

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Sarah Rice / Special to The Chronicle

President Obama greets the crowd after landing at Moffett Field in Mountain View to begin his whirlwind Bay Area fundraising tour with a $38,500-per-person dinner in Woodside.

Alex Wong/Getty Images(COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.) -- At a fundraiser for his re-election campaign in Denver Wednesday night, President Obama set out to upend conventional Republican wisdom that his administration has been defined by excessive government spending.

“I’m running to pay down our debt in a way that’s balanced and responsible. After inheriting a $1 trillion deficit, I signed $2 trillion of spending cuts into law,” he told a crowd of donors at the Hyatt Regency. “My opponent won’t admit it, but it’s starting to appear in places, like real liberal outlets, like the Wall Street Journal.

If Mark Zuckerberg's new wife was expecting a MASSIVE diamond on her wedding ring... she was SORELY disappointed.

Just days after the surprise wedding of the century, Priscilla Chan-Zuckerberg took her brand new ruby rock on the road... flashing her piece during a lunch date with a friend in Palo Alto, CA yesterday.

According to reports, the $20 BILLION Facebook honcho -- who has a reputation for not caring about excessive displays of wealth -- designed the ring himself.

It's unclear how much the ring cost... hopefully not much... 'cause his Facebook stock has been sinking like Natalie Wood ever since it debuted on Friday.

Regulators are examining whether Morgan Stanley, the investment bank that shepherded Facebook through its highly publicized stock offering last week, selectively informed clients of an analyst’s negative report about the company before the stock started trading.

Former CNN Exec Caught Putting Dog Poop in Neighbor’s

iStockphoto/Thinkstock

(COVINGTON, Ga.) -- The former president of CNN’s Headline News almost found himself in deep doo-doo after he was caught on camera placing a bag filled with dog excrement in a neighbor’s mailbox last week.

Bob Furnad was seemingly oblivious to the surveillance camera capturing him and his dog as he looked up his neighbor’s driveway, then shoved a plastic baggie into their mailbox.

Hours later, Benjamin Dameron and Ralph Miller discovered just what he’d left behind. Dameron said that he was “shocked” to discover what was in the bag.

“We cannot figure out why he did it,” Dameron said. “At this point we really don’t care why he did it … You know it was a silly thing to do, and were over it. I mean it’s just a silly prank.”

Dameron, 71, said that the prank that you’d expect from a teen came from Furnad, who is also a respected professor at the University of Georgia.

Furnad, who was head of CNN's Headline News until 2001, admitted to the act to police and local media, but did not apologize.

“This was an immature act in response to years of malicious rumor mongering that I consider defamation of character,” he told the Covington News.

Dameron and Miller have lived in Worthington Manor, a historic home in the quiet, upscale Georgia town of Covington for more than two decades. They say they haven’t spoken to Furnad in years, and that any feud is news to them.

The two opted not to sue Furnad, who was fined $181 for littering.

“I think this is embarrassing enough for him, as well as everyone in Covington,” Dameron said.

This week Catholic bishops are heading to federal courts across the country to defend religious liberty. On Monday they filed 12 lawsuits on behalf of a diverse group of 43 Catholic entities that are challenging the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) sterilization, abortifacient and birth-control insurance mandate. Like most Americans, the bishops have long taken for granted the religious freedom that has enabled this nation's diverse religions to flourish in relative harmony. But over the past year they have become increasingly concerned about the erosion of conscience

Campaigns are not won on attack ads alone. A candidate for any office has to roll out a positive vision of their agenda, even when running against a failing incumbent. Alternately, a campaign can do a little of both in the same spot, and that’s what Team Romney tries to do in the new ad rolling out today, “Day One”:

You want positive? The tone of the spot is upbeat, optimistic, and colorful, and it spells out Romney’s priorities for his presidency — jobs, the economy, energy, and more jobs. Competitive? The spot hits Obama on every point: approving the Keystone pipeline, reversing Obama’s policies on taxes and spending, and most importantly, replacing Obmacare with something that works without blowing up an already-disastrous entitlement overhang. It’s a smart, well-produced ad that challengers can run more effectively than incumbents in any cycle. Don’t forget that Barack Obama ran on similar Day One promises in 2008, made effective by essentially running against George Bush more than John McCain, including closing Gitmo and imposing bars on lobbyists serving in his administration. How did those Day One promises turn out? Er ….

I’m sure we’ll see a similar ad in this cycle from Team Obama eventually, although it might be difficult to put an upbeat, positive spin on continuing the status quo while depicting it as a change. That’s the tough part of running for a second term.

“Anyone still wondering how their tax dollars are going to be wasted, here is your answer: $4 million for a job that private business can do for free in 8 days. Government contractors are already drooling after the insane profits they will be making off of overpriced stimulus deals.”

How? “So Slack, other business owners and residents made the decision not to sit on their hands and wait for state money that many expected would never come. Instead, they pulled together machinery and manpower and hit the ground running March 23. Watch the volunteers repairing the road »

And after only eight days, all of the repairs were done, Pleas said. It was a shockingly quick fix to a problem that may have taken much longer if they waited for state money to funnel in.”

Government said it was a two year project costing tens of millions—average citizens did it for $4 million in eight days. Now you know how much money government wastes. Want to find waste? Look for the union label.

About a third of voters say they are “extremely” interested in the election. Among just that group, Romney tops Obama by 50 percent to 44 percent.

Overall, each candidate’s party support is strong: Most Democrats back Obama (88 percent) and most Republicans support Romney (84 percent).

Among independents, 34 percent back Romney, 29 percent support Obama and more than a third are undecided or say they won’t vote (36 percent). Last month, independents broke for Romney by 46 percent to 33 percent.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows Mitt Romney earning 47% of the vote and President Obama attracting 46% support. Four percent (4%) would vote for a third party candidate, while another four percent (4%) are undecided.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Remember when Occupy Wall Street was sweeping the nation? “The media branded it the left’s answer to the Tea Party, the start of a grand national mobilization; depending on who you ask, half of America once supported the OWS protestors, double the amount who back the Tea Party. The Huffington Post even launched a separate page devoted entirely to coverage of OWS. How the mighty have fallen. . . . OWS has essentially fallen apart. It is not a significant presence on the streets; it is not a significant presence in Democratic Party politics; it is not a significant presence in the national conversation.”

OWS was never mighty. It was always a bubble full of media hot air, and it collapsed when its actual behavior damaged it to the point that even the media’s best effots couldn’t keep it inflated, at which point the press started pretending it had never existed. . . .

If a left-wing president were to lose the New York Times, there would be good reason for him and his operatives to flip out. President Obama hasn’t lost the New York Times; he has merely “lost” a new poll by CBS/New York Times taken five months before the election. It shows him trailing Mitt Romney 46-43, and trailing among women by 46-44. And he hasn’t “lost” that poll in any strong sense; Romney’s lead is within the margin of error

Apparently, though, this “setback” was enough to cause the hyper-sensitive Obama operation to lash out at the Times. According to a campaign spokesperson, the poll used a “biased sample.” The sample was biased, according to Team Obama, because the Times had used the same sample in April. That, of course, wouldn’t make the sample biased. Politico reports, however, that according to the Obama camp, the group surveyed in April had produced an “outlier” result in which Romney led its man.

Team Obama’s complaints are without merit and border on the ridiculous. First, the April CBS/New York Times poll showed Romney and Obama in a dead-heat; Romney was not ahead. And this finding was not out of line with other polls. Fox also showed a dead-heat. Quinnipiac had Obama up by 4 points, NBC/Wall Street Journal by 6, and CNN by 9. But Gallup had Romney ahead by 5 points and Rasmussen had him up by 3. Thus, nothing in the April results suggested that CBS/New York Times should not re-poll the group that showed the candidates tied.

Second, there is nothing wrong with re-polling the same people. In fact, doing so can be useful in seeing how a major event (here Obama’s flip-flop in gay marriage) has affected the race. As a Times spokesperson patiently explained:

Three things are apparent from President Obama's annual financial disclosure statement, released today: He is a wealthy man, with assets of as much as $10 million.He has a hefty stake in JPMorgan Chase, the megabank that just made a bad $2 billion bet. Obama has an account worth between $500,000 and $1 million. Despite the nation's $15.6 trillion debt, he is a believer in government paper. More than half of his assets are in Treasury bills and notes.

#NARRATIVEFAIL: CBS Poll Shows Romney Leading Among Women. If you look at the full results, it’s Romney 44, Obama 42 among women. What’s more, that’s a big improvement for Romney since last month, when it was Obama 49, Romney 43. So apparently this whole “War Against Women” narrative hasn’t played too well for them. . . .

Star Trek geeks like me are thrilled to read this news today: Progress In Quantum Teleportation. “Since 1997, researchers have been able to quantum teleport photons with a major record being set by researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China in Shanghai. In 2010, that team successfully teleported a photon over 16km. Now that same team has released new findings, in which they claim to have teleported photons nearly 100km, or over 60 miles.”

Monday May 14, 2012 - A new book called "The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House" claims that Michelle and Oprah are NOT fans of each other. Michelle has reportedly accused Oprah of using the White House for TV ratings.

The president of the United States has just endorsed gay marriage—putting him not just in stark opposition to Mitt Romney but to Americans who firmly oppose it and have defeated every state referendum designed to legalize it.

Obama made the declaration to ABC News just three days after Joe Biden said he was “absolutely comfortable” with men marrying men and women marrying women—which prompted some administration officials to suggest the vice president was freelancing and that his remarks had not been cleared in advance.

While Obama insisted he was speaking personally, rather than mounting a campaign to change state laws: "I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or Marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that 'don't ask, don't tell' is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama told ABC’s Robin Roberts. The full interview will appear on Thursday’s Good Morning America,with excerpts Wednesday evening on World News.

At the risk of resorting to hyperbole, this is a political earthquake that shakes the landscape by putting a divisive culture-war issue front and center. The betting had been that while Biden and others would signal support on a wink-wink basis, Obama would play it safe and take no position until after the election.

Looks like Tuesday was a bad day for Barack Obama, Democrats in general, and particularly the unions. Three states held primaries, and in each, voters rejected positions and/or candidates associated with all three, in embarrassing vote totals. Let’s start with the least significant of these outcomes, the Democratic presidential primary in West Virginia, where an inmate in federal prison ran a novelty primary challenge to Barack Obama — and came within 20 points of winning (via Polipundit)

Read the rest of this super encouraging news, giving hope to all of us for REAL CHANGE in November right here.

"It’s one thing to squat in your darkened basement scribbling word salad messages to the demons in your head. It’s quite another to carefully craft an oversized protest sign intended for public display at the next Occupy protest. But many of the Occupiers could not seem to keep the two behaviors distinct, and the result can only be seen as evidence for major thought disorders among some of the protesters. Occupy Wall Street: serious protest movement, or manifestation of brain malfunction."

Zombie's assimilation, collation, and collection of photos from Occupy L.A.

Popular prisoner: Inmate Keith Judd (pictured left) who is serving time at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Texas, received around 40% of votes in West Virginia's primary, coming a close second to President Obama

Barack Obama was not the only Democrat on the ballot on Tuesday in West Virginia's Democratic Presidential Primary. Keith Judd - also known as Inmate No. 11593-051 at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Texas - was running against him. Judd, who is serving out a 17.5 year sentence for extortion, currently has received 40 percent of the vote, with 83 percent of precincts reporting, according to The Associated Press. Obama currently has received 60 percent of the vote. Obama’s lack of popularity in West Virginia has been well-documented.

President Obama invited the new French president to the White House. And political experts are eager to hear what comes of a meeting between the world's most prominent socialist....the new President of France.

A New Jersey roofer jumped into a vat of nitric acid solution to save a co-worker who had fallen 40 feet through a roof and into the tank, fire officials said.

Rob Nuckols, 51, was working on the ground floor Monday morning at Swepco Tube LLC when his colleague Martin Davis plunged into the vat of diluted acid and became fully submerged, officials said.

He jumped into the vat and was waist-high while he and three others pulled Davis out, Clifton Fire Chief Vince Colavitti told The Record of Woodland Park ( http://bit.ly/Jsf7II). The vat contained a 40 to 70 percent nitric acid solution used for cleaning metal tubing.

Rescue workers arrived after five minutes, cut Davis out of his clothes and sprayed him with water to limit burns, Colavitti said. Nuckols had already rinsed himself off.

Davis is in critical condition with a broken rib, punctured lung, and burns on his legs and side, a relative said.

Nuckols was treated for burns on his legs and abdomen. The three other roofers were taken to hospitals but there was no sign that they were seriously injured.

The men were working for Gar Con Enterprises of Flemington. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration said it was investigating and looking into both companies.

An employee at Swepco said the company had no comment, and Gar Con did not return calls.

The first USA TODAY/Gallup Swing States Poll since the GOP settled on a presumptive nominee shows big challenges for each side: Mitt Romney in generating enthusiasm and a personal connection with his supporters, and Barack Obama in convincing Americans he should be trusted to manage a fragile economy.

The president and the former Massachusetts governor start their head-to-head contest essentially even among registered voters — Obama 47%, Romney 45% — in the dozen battleground states likely to determine the election's outcome. That's closer than the lead of 9 percentage points for Obama in the Swing States survey in late March.

But the poll also finds a reversal in what has been a key GOP asset in the five previous battleground surveys taken since last fall: an edge in enthusiasm among voters. For the first time, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say they are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting — a shift from a 14-percentage-point GOP advantage at the end of last year to an 11-point deficit now.

That drop is driven by Republicans who describe themselves as moderate or liberal, about a third of the party, even though the candidate widely viewed as the most moderate in the GOP primary field is poised to be nominated. Just 7% of moderate and liberal Republicans now say they are extremely enthusiastic, down from 24% in January and compared with 34% of conservative Republicans who feel that way.

Swing States poll: The gender gap widens

The gender gap is getting bigger. A new USA TODAY/Gallup poll of swing states shows a difference of 20 percentage points in the presidential preferences of men and women.

Women support President Obama by 12 points, 52%-40%, in the survey of registered voters taken April 26-May 2 in 12 battleground states. Men support Mitt Romney by eight points, 50%-42%.

The gender gap was 12 points in the February Swing States survey and 17 points in March, a time when Democrats were decrying what they called a “war on women” in GOP policies on contraception policy and abortion rights. Republicans have responded by arguing that Obama’s economic policies have hurt many women, and the Romney campaign has put Ann Romney in the spotlight.

Washington - A US Congressman is demanding that government investigators interview the prostitute at the centre of the Secret Service's Colombia sex scandal after she described the bodyguards as 'fools'. New York Republican Peter King, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, acted after Dania Londono Suarez appeared on television to reveal her side of the story. (Snip) Miss Suarez said: "They were a bunch of fools. They are responsible for Obama's security and they still let this happen.

In the wake of a warm conservative reception for a web video trashing the president for “spiking the football” on the anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s death, the conservative group Veterans for a Strong America plans to gather Navy SEALs and Special Forces operators to criticize the White House during the 2012 campaign. “We’re looking to [put together] a coalition, to field SEALs and operators that want to come out publicly,” executive director of Veterans for a Strong America, Joel Arends, tells BuzzFeed. “I’ve had a lot of discussions with former SEALs and current SEALs. I’ve been talking to operators...

"I was wondering when something like this was going to surface, seeing as how it is an election year and that’s usually when people come out of the shadows with stories of their past lives with politicians. Take Genevieve Cook for example; she met Barack Obama before his presidential status back in 1983 when he was a young 22-year-old Columbia University graduate with big dreams."

What not to wear as an anarchist. This protester was trying to break a Bank of America window in Seattle during the May Day protests Tuesday, but check out his shoes. Photo: Joshua Trujillo/seattlepi.com.

Um, someone didn’t get the anarchist memo on what to wear for a day of vandalizing.

Despite threats to shut down banks, schools and offices as punishment for "economic inequality" nothing of the sort took place. The Occupy Everything crowd wanted MILLIONS to participate but "the people" did not rise up and revolt.

Hundreds of protestors in New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland did turn up. But what were the people in the streets REALLY saying?

An end to income inequality? A call for Communism? Socialism? A chance to run wild in the streets and commit crimes? All of the above yesterday in Oakland and San Francisco where violence took place, but the MESSAGE from the Occupy Everything crowd was last in the flash bang of police weapons. The rallies did not have the same drawing power as last year for the Occupiers, or even the half dozen years ago May Day rallies for immigration reform.

There was some violence. Anarchists and punks did manage to do damage to the people they claim to represent, as well as attacks on the police.

And there are questions to be answered about the thugs in San Francisco's Mission district. Residents want some answers from the left-wing government leaders who some say allowed the violence to go unchecked.

Business owners in San Francisco's Mission District, cleaning up after a night in which protesters damaged more than 30 stores and restaurants and vandalized cars, questioned Tuesday why activists had singled them out and why police hadn't done more to halt the rampage. Among those dealing with the damage were officers at the neighborhood police station, where black-clad, masked activists threw paint and bashed the front door Monday night. Even as they defended themselves from criticism that they had allowed the vandals to run wild - one restaurant owner said officers even appeared to be "escorting" the group -

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Brant Ward / The Chronicle

Police officers are hit with paint after they tackled one protester and held him down on Broadway Street. Hundreds of activists and Occupy Oakland members converged on downtown Oakland, Calif. for May 1st marches and protests.

I am taking to the streets of liberal San Francisco this morning for a series of live reports on the antics of the Occupy Whatevercrowd...and it promises to be a weird and strange day.

The Occupy Whatever people are asserting that "millions of people throughout the world - workers, students, immigrants, professionals, houseworkers, employed and unemployed alike - will take to the streets to unite in a General Strike against a system that doesn't work."

From San Francisco to New York, general strikes are being called, even by the writers and journalists charged with covering these events. Media bias? What's that?

Tune into KSFO 560 AM in San Frnacisco for my live coverage.

"Fasten your seat belts, we are in for a bumpy ride" Bette Davis, All About Eve, 1950

The womanizing serial cheater has more problems, and I suspect there will be many more before this sorry saga ends.

BOGOTA — The ex-husband of Arnold Schwarzenegger's lover told a Colombian magazine Sunday that he plans to sue the former governor, alleging that the birth certificate of the couple's love child was falsified.

Rogelio Baena, a Colombian native, was married to Mildred Patricia Baena, who was a housekeeper to the Hollywood star-turned California governor and his celebrity wife Maria Shriver.

Rogelio Baena only recently learned that his 13 year-old son with Mildred Baena was actually the love child of Schwarzenegger and his ex-wife.

Yet Rogelio Baena's name appears on the birth certificate as the boy's father, and attorneys have told him that if Schwarzenegger and Mildred Baena knew this was not true, they engaged in conspiracy to falsify a public document -- a serious crime in California.

Rogelio Baena separated from his then-wife after 10 years of marriage in October 1997, just weeks after the boy was born. The couple however did not file for divorce until February 2008, according to US entertainment media.

Mildred Baena, now 50, worked in Schwarzenegger-Shriver household for 20 years. The California power couple have four children between the ages of 14 and 21, and their youngest son was reportedly born just days before the Schwarzenegger-Mildred Baena love child was born.

Schwarzenegger, 63, announced his separation from Shriver after 25 years of marriage on May 10, and soon after revealed that the split occurred after he told her about the love child he had fathered and kept secret.

Schwarzenegger has put his movie comeback plans on hold to handle the family crisis sparked by his admission.

He told his agents that work on new projects including "The Terminator" franchise would stop "until further notice" as he grapples with a media storm four months after leaving political office.

Shriver, a daughter of the Kennedy political dynasty, has hired a top divorce lawyer, Laura Wasser, according to People magazine.

Pictures of Mildred Baena and her son with Schwarzenegger -- who bears a striking resemblance to Arnie -- have circulated online since the actor admitted to the love child, and apologized to his family.

For all my left-wing friends (and enemies) who start foaming at the mouth when the subject of Iraq comes up....please read the following post I clipped from Instapundit. And please feel free to actually think it over.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Memorial Day: The War In Iraq. “That victory was much more than a dignified escape from a sticky predicament. The coalition victory in Iraq was a historical turning point that may well turn out to be comparable to the cannonade of Valmy. It changed the course of world history. We have not done justice to those who gave their lives in Iraq until we recognize the full dimensions of their achievement. The story of Iraq has yet to be told. It is too politically sensitive for the intelligentsia to handle just yet; passions need to cool before the professors and the pundits who worked themselves into paroxysms of hatred and disdain for the Bush administration can come to grips with how wrongheaded they’ve been. . . . All wars are tragic; some are also victorious. The tragedies of Iraq are real and well known. The victory is equally real — but the politically fastidious don’t want to look.”

PRINCETON, NJ -- U.S. military veterans and those currently on active military duty are less likely to approve of President Obama's job performance than are Americans of comparable ages who are not in the military.

These results are based on an analysis of more than 238,000 interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking from January 2010 through April 2011. Respondents were classified as veterans/active-duty military based on responses to a series of questions probing whether any member of the household had served in the U.S. military, and whether the respondent himself or herself had served and, if so, whether the respondent was currently on active duty. Americans currently serving in the military overseas or on ships at sea would not be included in this national cell and landline telephone sample.

Thirty-seven percent of all active-duty military personnel and veterans surveyed approved of the job Obama is doing during the January 2010 to April 2011 time frame. That compares with 48% of nonveterans interviewed during the same period.

Obama's approval rating varies by age, with younger Americans in general most likely to approve and older Americans least likely. The gap in approval between veterans/active duty military and nonveterans persists across the age spectrum, from 18- to 29-year-olds to those 80 and older.

Differences Across Gender Groups

Veterans and active-duty military, particularly those 40 and older, are predominantly men, and men are less likely to approve of the job Obama is doing than are women. However, the gap in Obama job approval between veterans/active-duty military and nonveterans persists among men in each age group.

Women who are serving or have served in the military are on a relative basis more positive about Obama than is the case for men who are members of the military or veterans. Female veterans or those in the military between the ages of 30 and 49, for example, are actually slightly more likely to approve of Obama than are nonveteran women in this age group.

Active-Duty Military Less Likely to Express an Opinion on Obama

Although active-duty military personnel are less likely to approve of the job Obama is doing than are national adults overall, this group's disapproval is only marginally higher than that of national adults. This is because active-duty military -- particularly those under 40 -- are significantly more likely to say they have no opinion about Obama's job performance than is the case for all adults in the same age group

The commercials on TV are calling us to purchase, cars, furniture, clothing, appliances, electronics or a myriad of other things to "Celebrate Memorial Day" with their huge blowout sales! Our Parks and Recreation programs are declaring summer has arrived by opening our pools and encouraging us to come join in the fun and laughter this Memorial Day weekend. It saddens me and breaks my heart to see that most of America has taken advantage of this 3 day weekend as a reason to party, shop and celebrate for self-fulfillment. As a country we have lost our focus and the reason why we take time to stop and respectfully, solemnly and reverently remember those who gave up their last breath and hope of a future, so that we could enjoy each and every day. We have failed our children by not educating them as to the real meaning of Memorial Day.

As I child I remember getting together with family for picnics or bar-b-ques. We looked forward to camping trips or trips to the lake. There were a few trips I remember to the cemetery but it was to place flowers on deceased relative's graves who had never served in the military. I thought Memorial Day was to remember loved ones who had died. I wasn't taught and therefore I missed the opportunity to teach my children that Memorial Day is to remember those who paid the ultimate price. Freedom comes with a price, it isn't free.

"Freedom's Not Free" The Rivoli Revue

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It really was my son Marc Alan Lee who taught me about Memorial Day.

Memorial Day Tribute: Marc Alan Lee

The way he lived his life and the value he placed on others' lives, caused him to sacrifice his life defending his teammates and our freedoms. Marc was the first Navy SEAL killed in Iraq 8-2-06. "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." John 15:13

The orders from Gen. John A. Logan declared "The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit. "

General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery on the first Observance of Memorial day and then 5,000 patriots decorated the graves of 20,000 soldiers buried in the cemetery. I am so proud of the boy scouts who every year place flags on my son's grave and every headstone at Fort Rosecrans. I know that many others throughout the nation will be doing the same at National Cemeteries all over our country, thank you!

Waterloo, NY was declared by President Johnson as the official birthplace of Memorial Day. He recognized that this was a city who understood the real meaning of Memorial Day. They knew that Memorial Day was to honor America's mighty warriors who sacrificed their lives in combat defending our freedoms. Businesses closed, community wide events were planned to honor our brave warriors who were killed in action and residents gathered and decorated the graves of our heroes. How sad that there are businesses in America who take advantage of this holiday and choose to increase their profits instead of sacrificing a little by closing to remember the sacrifice of our fallen war heroes.

I speak for all of the Gold Star families who have lost a loved one in combat, that every day for us is Memorial Day. With pride and pain we remember them; we remember their smile, their voice, their smell, their touch, their laughter, their character, their dedication and their sacrifice. As a nation we ask that on Memorial Day, one day out of the year that as a Nation we corporately come together to honor our fallen heroes who died in combat. That's not asking too much for the blessings and freedoms that you enjoy every day.

I've read many articles about Memorial Day and heard quotes from speeches from well-meaning people, even from our leaders in the military, who seem to not completely understand that Memorial Day is the Day we remember those heroes, who while serving in the military, died in combat. We have Armed Forces Day and Veterans Day to remember our Vets who are serving or have served. Personally not a day goes by that I don't remember our Vets, not matter when they served, or the branch of service they were in. I've dedicated my life to honoring, thanking and supporting our military and especially the families of the fallen, but on May 30th, Memorial Day join with me as we "Remember" not "Celebrate" those who gave their all for you and I.

Join with me as I lead the charge to reclaim Memorial Day. Attend Parades and community events to remember our fallen heroes. Take a carload of friends and family to a National Cemetery and decorate the graves and remember the sacrifice of a hero and their family. Thank the family members of those you know who lost a loved one in combat. Take a Gold Star family to lunch, coffee, dinner and ask them about their hero. Do something to let them know you have not forgotten the sacrifice and understand the high price that has been paid for our freedoms. Read a story of a fallen hero, watch a memorial video,

Marc Alan Lee, Navy Seal, KIA (Shorter without flag at end)

then pass it on to those whose lives you have influence on. If you're a business close on May 30th to honor and remember our fallen or donate the proceeds from the day to a charity who tells the stories of our fallen or who takes care of the families of the fallen. Our fallen heroes gave their very last breath defending you and they have earned the respect due them on Memorial Day.

Tim Pawlenty could end up as the last candidate standing in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, but conservatives aren’t too enthused about any of the top-tier contenders for 2012, Richard Viguerie told NewsMax.TV.

But all that could change if Sen. Jim DeMint threw his hat into the ring, said Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.

“He would electrify the movement much as Ronald Reagan did,” Viguerie said.

If the South Carolina senator did enter the race, he would attract almost universal support among conservatives: “He would almost clear the field for his candidacy,” Viguerie said in the exclusive Newsmax interview.

But as it stand now, Viguerie said, “almost all the conservatives I know are disappointed” in the slate of contenders.

He praised businessman Herman Cain and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota as “wonderful, principled conservatives” but added that “they haven’t demonstrated that they can be top-tier candidates.”

Of the big names in the race so far, Viguerie sees former Minnesota Gov. Pawlenty not as the favorite but as a candidate most Republicans feel they could live with.

“Tim Pawlenty is someone who is interestingly positioned now so that he could be everybody’s default candidate,” Viguerie said. “Very few people see them as their first or second choice. He might be the last person standing. He’s the default candidate for all elements of the party.”

Pawlenty could beat President Barack Obama in 2012 if he is able to articulate the Republican message clearly, Viguerie said. “People want to fire Obama by 2012. They feel strongly, but they need to feel comfortable” with the GOP alternative.

Viguerie dismissed former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman’s chances, saying the former U.S. ambassador is seen as “liberal Republican” and will alienate conservatives.

As for former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who has been considering another White House bid, “I think he has zero chance of getting the nomination,” Viguerie said.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is in the race, but Viguerie says conservatives don’t consider him reliable enough.

“Conservatives for many years have had kind of a love-hate relationship with Newt Gingrich,” he said. “There are days when he sounds just like a conservative, and then he moves left . . . Conservatives really don’t feel like they can trust Newt.”

Viguerie described New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as “an intriguing individual” but said conservatives don’t yet know a lot about him.

“Chris Christie is a blank slate. I don’t think conservatives are going to be inclined to buy a pig in a poke,” he said.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin does a good job in speaking out and bringing attention to the conservative agenda, Viguerie said, adding that he isn’t so sure the GOP’s 2008 vice-presidential candidate would make a viable contender for the nomination.

Palin “is an asset to the conservative cause,” he said. “I am glad that she is involved in the public policy arena. I think as a candidate, she could be polarizing.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Weather experts said it’s unusual for deadly tornadoes to develop a few weeks apart in the U.S. But what made the two storm systems that barreled through a Missouri city and the South within the last month so rare is that tornadoes took direct aim at populated areas.

The tornado that hit Joplin, Mo., on Sunday killed at least 116 people and marked the nation’s deadliest single tornado in almost six decades. The series of twisters that swept through the South late last month killed more than 300 people. Both disasters leveled entire communities.

Such a pair of weather events is “unusual but not unknown,” said tornado researcher Howard B. Bluestein of the University of Oklahoma. “Sometimes you get a weather pattern in which the ingredients for a tornado are there over a wide area and persist for a long time. That’s what we’re having this year.”

And the threat is continuing, he said, noting more storms are predicted over the next few days.

Can't we prosecute this guy, Harold Camping? All those poor people who gave away their money, and wasted time following the crazy numerical calculations of an old man who made a gazillion dollars off of them.

The man who proclaimed the world was going to end this Saturday was quite alive and well when IBTimes spoke to him on Sunday night. With no sign of Judgment Day arriving as he had forecast, Harold Camping the 89-year-old California evangelical broadcaster seemed to have gone silent over the weekend. Camping told IBTimes that after May 21 passed without incident , he needed more time to think and to recover before he would speak publically. "This is a big deal," Camping explained.

Harold Camping may still be locked behnd the razar wire around his Family Radio compound in Oakland, California pondering the fact that the world has not ended...but the people of Joplin, Missouri certainly felt the horror of a twister blowing up their universe.

My sister Michelle Morgan was in the small town of 50,000 on a weekend trip with her friend when the twister struck. Fortunately, she is uninjured, but 3/4's of Joplin is destroyed. Michelle is trapped in town because Highway 44 is closed.

This is terrible. What else can you say in the face of such destruction?

"..The three widows of Osama bin Laden are turning on each other in custody, with two older Saudi women blaming a much younger Yemeni wife for leading American intelligence to their hideout. "It's vicious," said a Pakistani official briefed on the interrogation of the widows. "The older wives think the younger one tipped off the Americans or was tracked when she came to join him." (Snip) "It's a well-known fact that when you have two older wives and then this young one comes along half their age, they don't like it," said one.

Actress Jane Seymour has claimed Arnold Schwarzenegger has at least two more illegitimate children that he has kept secret from the world. The astonishing allegations come after former Californian governor Schwarzenegger’s marriage to Maria Shriver collapsed when it was revealed that he had a son, Joseph, following an affair with his housekeeper Mildred Baena 14 years ago. Seymour, who moves in the same Malibu circles as Schwarzenegger and his estranged wife, said: ‘I was not remotely surprised by their separation."

I know - I know. You are shocked, stunned and amazed. Now, about all those folks who drained their savings accounts on the word of this man, Harold Camping. I guess the only left to do is pray for them.

Harold Camping, the 89-year-old retired civil engineer, who founded Family Radio Worldwide, an independent ministry that has broadcasted his prediction around the world Photo: AP

Given that the end of the world was supposed to be nigh, it perhaps wasn’t surprising that Christian doomsday prophet Harold Camping had shown some reluctance to take advance bookings.

The 89-year-old Californian preacher and radio host had prophesied that the Rapture would begin at 6pm May 21st in each of the world’s time zones, with non-believers wiped out by rolling earthquakers, as the saved ascended into heaven.

His refusal to schedule a media interview for the following day - “It is absolutely going to happen. There is no way that I can schedule an interview because I won’t be here.” - was being replayed by media as the world firmly stayed standing.

On the microsite Twitter, groups of atheists and sceptics were last night swapping tales of After Rapture parties, with one group, in Tacoma, Washington, branding their celebration “Countdown to Back-Pedalling”.

Mr Camping’s doomsday prediction wasn’t his first. He blamed an earlier apocalyptic prediction which passed quietly in 1994 on a mathematical error, last month saying: “I’m not embarrassed about it. It was just the fact that it was premature.”

Welcome to the Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama

Join conservative leaders from across the country for a special 3-hour RadioThon Thursday, May 19th. This special program will be hosted by nationally acclaimed radio host, Melanie Morgan, conservative activist, Lloyd Marcus, and Tea Party Express Chairman, Amy Kremer. Click here for more info, to RSVP, and to invite your friends.

Help us tell Washington: Don’t Raise the debt Ceiling! See our ad here.

With skyrocketing debt being left to future generations, unprecedented power grabs and an economy perpetually dragged down by so-called stimulus plans, there’s no denying that Washington is out of control. Americans are already fighting back through the Tea Party movement and an election that rocked Congress, but now it’s time to take on the one man at the center of it all: Barack Obama.

We’re dedicated to doing the hard work to ensure his defeat at the ballot box at 2012. There will be many other races, and there will be many candidates for President, but our sole focus is making sure we win the one fight that matters most. With Obama’s administration already assuming broad new powers through regulation rather than going through Congress, he’s on a path to deny the will of the people even more and be more destructive than ever. We simply can’t afford another 4 years. That’s why we hope you’ll sign our petition today and join our fight to Defeat Barack Obama!

"...The end of the world is nigh; 21 May, to be precise. That's the date when Harold Camping, a preacher from Oakland, California, is confidently predicting the Second Coming of the Lord. At about 6pm, he reckons 2 per cent of the world's population will be immediately "raptured" to Heaven; the rest of us will get sent straight to the Other Place.

If Mr Camping were speaking from any normal pulpit, it would be easy to dismiss him as just another religious eccentric wrongly calling the apocalypse. But thanks to this elderly man's ubiquity, on America's airwaves and billboards, his unlikely Doomsday message is almost impossible to ignore.

Every day Mr Camping, an 89-year-old former civil engineer, speaks to his followers via the Family Radio Network, a religious broadcasting organisation funded entirely by donations from listeners. Such is their generosity (assets total $120m) that his network now owns 66 stations in the US alone.

Those deep pockets were raided to allow Family Radio to launch a high-profile advertising campaign, proclaiming the approaching Day of Judgement. More than 2,000 billboards across the US are adorned with its slogans, which include "Blow the trumpet, warn the people!". A fleet of logoed camper vans is touring every state in the nation. "It's getting real close. It's really getting pretty awesome, when you think about it," Mr Camping told The Independent on Sunday. "We're not talking about a ball game, or a marriage, or graduating from college. We're talking about the end of the world, a matter of being eternally dead, or being eternally alive, and it's all coming to a head right now."

Mr Camping, who makes programmes in 48 languages, boasts tens of thousands of followers across the globe, with radio stations in South Africa, Russia and Turkey. After 70 years of studying the Bible, he claims to have developed a system that uses mathematics to interpret prophesies hidden in it. He says the world will end on 21 May, because that will be 722,500 days from 1 April AD33, which he believes was the day of the Crucifixion. The figure of 722,500 is important because you get it by multiplying three holy numbers (five, 10 and 17) together twice. "When I found this out, I tell you, it blew my mind," he said.

Recent events, such as earthquakes in Japan, New Zealand and Haiti, are harbingers of impending doom, he says, as are changing social values. "All the stealing, and the lying, and the wickedness and the sexual perversion that is going on in society is telling us something," he says. "So too is the gay pride movement. It was sent by God as a sign of the end."

Mr Camping, who founded Family Radio in the 1950s, grew up a Baptist. Many of his strongly held views – he does not believe in evolution and thinks all abortion should be banned – are relatively commonplace among America's religious right.

Critics point out that this isn't the first time Mr Camping has predicted the second coming. On 6 September 1994, hundreds of his listeners gathered at an auditorium in Alameda looking forward to Christ's return.

"At that time there was a lot of the Bible I had not really researched very carefully," he said last week. "But now, we've had the chance to do just an enormous amount of additional study and God has given us outstanding proofs that it really is going to happen."

Could another Texas Governor gallup up to the Presidential trough? Some GOP political operatives in the Lone Star state are whispering about their guy - Governor Rick Perry. But I gotta say - doesn't he look like a younger version of Mitt? Just askin'.

As many grass-roots Republicans remain in search of a conservative candidate with the pizazz to go toe-to-toe against President Obama, a man from deep in the heart of Texas who was tea party before the tea party was cool appears to be giving the presidential race some thought.

Gov. Rick Perry has insisted on multiple occasions that he has no interest in the presidency, but RCP has learned that political associates have begun to nose around quietly on Perry's behalf.

Those of us who voted for and supported Tom McClintock during the recall election in California in 2004 feel vindicated today...but overwhelming sadness for everyone else involved in this sordid mess.

Schwarzenegger is a lout, without a doubt. Pray for his family.

Arnold Schwarzenegger Fathered Child with Household Staffer

Chelsea Lauren/FilmMagic(LOS ANGELES) -- The discovery of a child fathered by ex-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger with a member of his household staff resulted in the separation from his wife Maria Shriver, according to a report in The Los Angeles Times early Tuesday morning.

"After leaving the governor's office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago," Schwarzenegger said in a statement issued to the Times. "I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family. There are no excuses and I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused. I have apologized to Maria, my children and my family. I am truly sorry."

Shriver has moved out of the couple's Brentwood, California home.

The news comes as the couple publicly announced in a joint statement last week that they were separating after 25 years of marriage.

Schwarzenegger asked for the media to "respect my wife and children through this extremely difficult time," according to the statement to issued to the Times. "While I deserve your attention and criticism, my family does not."

In last week's statement, the couple said they mutually came to the decision to separate while they live apart and "decide on the future of their relationship."

"This has been a time of great personal and professional transition for each of us. After a great deal of thought, reflection, discussion, and prayer, we came to this decision together," Shriver and Schwarzenegger said in the May 9 statement.

The Los Angeles Timesreported the staffer involved had worked for the couple for 20 years before retiring last January. The ex-staffer, who is not named in the Times story to protect her privacy, said she "left on good terms with them."

She told the Times that her "then-husband -- was the child's father."

A source told the Times that Schwarzenegger continues to provide for the child financially.

Senior insiders to Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann say the Republican founder of the House Tea Party caucus is now very likely to run for president. In the wake of both Mike Huckabee and Donald Trump opting out of the 2012 race, calls to Bachmann's offices "have been burning up our lines" according to a Bachmann confidant who marveled, "one guy called her our Margaret Thatcher!" Bachmann has said before that she will likely make a decision by June. She unveiled a new website design Monday that highlights Team Bachmann rather than Congresswoman Bachmann.

I would be a little nervous if I were a Democrat seeking re-election in 2012 whose name begins with a O and ends in A.

"...The Obama administration will begin to tap federal retiree programs to help fund operations after the government lost its ability Monday to borrow more money from the public, adding urgency to efforts in Washington to fashion a compromise over the debt.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has warned for months that the government would soon hit the $14.3·trillion debt ceiling — a legal limit on how much it can borrow. With that limit reached Monday, Geithner is undertaking special measures in an effort to postpone the day when he will no longer have enough funds to pay all of the government’s bills.

Geithner, who has already suspended a program that helps state and local government manage their finances, will begin to borrow from retirement funds for federal workers. The measure won’t have an impact on retirees because the Treasury is legally required to reimburse the program.

The maneuver buys Geithner only a few months of time. If Congress does not vote by Aug. 2 to raise the debt limit, Geithner says the government is likely to default on some of its obligations, which he says would cause enormous economic harm and the suspension of government services, including the disbursal of Social Security funds.

Many congressional Republicans, however, have been skeptical that breaching the Aug. 2 deadline would be as catastrophic as Geithner suggests. What’s more, Republican leaders are insisting that Congress cut spending by as much as the Obama administration wants to raise the debt limit, without any new taxes. Obama is proposing spending cuts and tax increases to rein in the debt.

“Everything should be on the table, except raising taxes,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “Because raising taxes will hurt our economy and hurt our ability to create jobs in our country.

My husband enjoys watching 60 Minutes on CBS and has for years. Why, you ask? Well, it's because he is a liberal and likes to watch TVshows that affirm his liberal opinion. Naturally - I do not (watch 60 Minutes OR share his politics.)

But when I heard CIA Chief Robert Gates talking about Obama's order to kill Bin Laden "the most courageous" decision he has ever seen...I stomped upstairs in disgust.

I am sick to my stomach hearing the constant spin from the Obamaistas about the guts of our Commander in Chief.

Let me say this clearly: It doesn't take any courage to order the death of a stone faced killer who would happily slit the throats of every man, woman, and child in this country if he could. It takes courage to CARRY OUT THAT ORDER KNOWING THAT YOU MIGHT DIE DOING SO.

"...President Barack Obama made a “very gutsy call” to send Navy SEALs into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden, outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an interview broadcast Sunday. "I worked for a lot of these guys. And this is one of the most courageous calls – decisions — that I think I’ve ever seen a president make,” Gates told CBS in a wide-ranging interview aired on “60 Minutes.”

"...For most big news Web sites, about 60 percent of the traffic is homegrown, people who come directly to the site by dint of a bookmark or typing in www.latimes.com or www.huffingtonpost.com. The other critical 40 percent comes by referrals, the links that are the source of drive-by traffic, new readers and heat-seekers on a particular story.

By far, most of the traffic from links comes from the sprawling hybrid of Google search and news, which provides about 30 percent of the visits to news sites, according to a report released last week by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, part of the Pew Research Center. And the second? Has to be Facebook, right? Nope. Then Twitter must be the next in line. Except it isn’t.

Give up? It’s The Drudge Report, a 14-year-old site — a relic by Web standards — conceived and operated by Matt Drudge. Using data from the Nielsen Company to examine the top 21 news sites on the Web, the report suggests that Mr. Drudge, once thought of as a hothouse flower of the Lewinsky scandal, is now more powerful in driving news than the half-billion folks on Facebook. (According to the study, Facebook accounted for 3.3 percent of the referrals to news sites, less than half as many as generated by The Drudge Report.)

“When you look at his influence, it cuts across all kind of sites, both traditional news outlets and online-only sites,” said Amy S. Mitchell, the deputy director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism and one of the authors of the study. “He was an early and powerful force in setting the news agenda and has somehow maintained that even as there has been a great deal of change in the way people get their news.”

Gingrich Backs Obamacare Mandate for Health InsuranceFormer House Speaker and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich told "Meet the Press" Sunday that he backs a requirement that every citizen purchase or acquire health insurance, a key component of President Obama's health care law. Gingrich described his plan as a "variation" of Obama's individual mandate. Gingrich's position undermines the key legal challenge made by 26 states against Obamacare and his comments have drawn a sharp reaction from conservatives. Read the Full Story — Go Here Now

This Thursday we host the 3-hour "Defeat Barack Obama" RadioThon. One of our goals will be to raise $250,000 for our campaign to boot Barack Obama from the White House once and for all.

To reach that goal we're starting our fundraising drive for this effort today. Each and every day Barack Obama is out there fundraising for his election campaign. Today, we launch the largest effort to fight back and defeat him.

You can contribute $25, $50, $100 or make a more generous contribution of $250, $500, $1,000 or more - up to the maximum allowed contribution of $5,000. If you prefer you can also mail in a contribution to our headquarters:

We've now got less than one-week to get the word out on the big, upcoming RadioThon. Please help us spread word about this truly historic broadcast by going to our Facebook Event page and clicking "Attend" on this page and then most importantly click the button that says "+Select Guests to Invite" and invite all your friends and fellow patriots:http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207710802593570

We're trying to make this one of the biggest broadcasting events in recent radio history - the program will air nationally, originating from powerhouse station, KDWN 720 AM in Las Vegas, and streaming across America online at: www.KDWN.com

Mike Huckabee Not Running For President (TVNewser)Mike Huckabee is not jumping into the race for the GOP nomination for president. The Fox News host and former Arkansas governor made the announcement live at the end of his pretaped, weekly program, Huckabee. "I will not seek the Republican nomination for president this year," Huckabee said. "I'm going to gladly continue doing what I do."NYT: Beginning this summer, News Corp., the media company controlled by Rupert Murdoch, will announce each year all of the political contributions it has made.

...and speaking of FOX News....Jon Stewart To Go On The O'Reilly Factor Monday (TVNewser)Jon Stewart has accepted Bill O'Reilly's invitation to debate the White House's decision to invite controversial rapper Common to a poetry event earlier this week.

WASHINGTON — The more Republicans get to know their potential White House candidates, the less happy they are with their choices.

It's not that they dislike the individual candidates. They just give them a collective shrug as possible opponents for President Barack Obama. They'd like someone with a little more pizazz.

Some 45 percent now say they're dissatisfied with the GOP candidates who have declared or are thought to be serious about running, up from 33 percent two months ago, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll. Just 41 percent are satisfied with the likely Republican field, down from 52 percent.

In this May 2, 2011 file photo, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speaks in Lakewood, Colo. The more Republicans get to know their potential presidential candidates, the less happy they are with their choices. Some 45 percent in an AP-GfK poll say they're dissatisfied with the GOP candidates who have declared or are thought to be serious about running, up from 33 percent just two months ago.

Ron Paul. Today is the big day. Well, a big day anyway. Ron Paul, the 12-term Republican representative from Texas, appeared on one of those morning news shows that mixes the weather, singers, weather, authors, weather, actors, weather, the scary kidnapped child story and the occasional animal tale. Paul conversed with that little guy with the precisely-tousled hair who used to work for Bill Clinton. And 48 hours after Paul opened his Iowa caucus campaign headquarters -- News Bulletin -- he "revealed" to "Good Morning America" his candidacy for president of the United States.

Lesson of the Day: The camera doesn’t lie, only the TelePrompter does. The Ballad of ‘Obama Killed Osama’ has hit a brick wall. The Truth came along and did it in. Making it worse for overworked and over paid spin meisters, after almost three years not every college student is an Obama groupie;

On paper, Mitt Romney comes across as a credible candidate for the GOP. He's personable, handsome, sufficiently conservative, and he's NOT Barack Obama.

But however hard I try, I just don't dig the dude. Romney care in Massaschusetts is certainly a huge part of my disinterest... it was the early version of Obamacare Also, his unnerving habit of looking across the room to see who is more important to talk to than you - yuk, I hate that in a person.

"...It's no secret that one of Mitt Romney's biggest vulnerabilities is the fact that he invented RomneyCare in Massachusetts, thus paving the way for the detested Obamacare. What is surprising is that the WSJ -- which you'd think might overlook that in Romney's case, given their general common ideologies -- would pulverize him on the subject. That's exactly what they've done tonight, on the eve of his big healthcare speech, basically branding him has un-credible and self-serving. They say RomneyCare has been a mess, but that really, up until recently he was bragging about its success..."

Prominent journalists like ABC’s Christiane Amanpour and former Washington Post editor and now Vice President Len Downie serve on boards of operations that take Soros cash. This despite the Society of Professional Journalists' ethical code stating: “avoid all conflicts real or perceived.”

There is one thing far less reliable than predicting future weather patterns. Trying to predict human behavior. Especially private behavior, the kind that takes place in a voting booth.

Yet, more and more these days, we -- the American electorate -- are told by politicos and pollsters and pundit-crats which candidates have a chance -- or no chance at all -- of being elected. These utterly unreliable political forecasts are not simply presumptuous (One man/woman's personal opinion does not speak for some mystical American authority), they are as un-American as one could get this side of European Aristocracy.

The American Revolution itself was fought and won to avoid this very type of ruling-class decision making. Influence gained by television or celebrity status is no more representative of meritocracy than union protectionism. And we the people have every right to resist this concerted effort to pick and choose our candidates, irrespective of whether they are "loved" by D.C. insiders and media stars.

So, I'm sick and tired of being told by the same people who have given media imprimaturs to the current folks in political power (not a success story, if you ask me) just who and who is not worthy of my one vote!

I'll vote for whomever I please and be darned proud of my independence and individuality, my all-American liberty.

Today, I've highlighted some of the reasons why I might just vote for Herman Cain, the very successful American businessman, who seems to understand the economy better than the entire U.S. Treasury Department. Americans today are fighting the silent beast of inflation -- especially in our food and fuel costs -- the beast that our government still insists is nonexistent. And Herman Cain's voice is the most appealing to me at the moment, when it comes to the economy.

There is going to be a premature evacuation at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue next year....so if I might be so bold, I would like to offer some advice to Michelle "Gangsta" Obama...please start compiling some quotes for moving trucks.

Gasoline prices will remain high through 2012, the U.S. Energy Information Administration says. The government's prediction Tuesday assumes significant increases in global oil consumption, oil price increases to go along with that, and even stronger profits for oil companies in the short run. But it does not mention the volatility that has beset oil markets in the last couple of weeks, driving prices to near record highs. The spikes -- driven by massive amounts of investor money electronically moving in and out of the commodities markets -- have convinced many motorists that somebody is gouging them.

Wash. Post: 'Before Sen. John Kerry got a word in, Gingrich conceded that global warming is real, that humans have contributed to it and that 'we should address it very actively.' Gingrich held up Kerry's new book, and called it 'a very interesting read.' -- Kerry gushed: 'I frankly appreciate the candor.'

P.S. Andrew will be joining me on the broadcast "Three Hours to Freedom" in Las Vegas May 19th. Please tune in to this fundraiser to DEFEAT BARACK OBAMA IN 2012 from 6 to 9 p.m. (See above banner ad for details.)

As Executive Director of The Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama Committee, it is my privilege to invite you to listen to our upcoming 3-hour radio program entitled “Three Hours to Freedom,” a RadioThon for our campaign effort to Defeat Barack Obama. Please read the details on this radio program below and RSVP your participation by responding to this email.

The show will be broadcast live nationwide on Thursday, May 19th (6:00PM – 9:00PM Pacific // 9:00PM – 12 Midnight Eastern), originating from Las Vegas News/Talk radio giant KDWN 720 AM and streamed online at www.KDWN.com

The program will be hosted by Melanie Morgan (nationally acclaimed radio and television personality), Lloyd Marcus (Vice Chairman of The Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama and a popular conservative singer/songwriter) and Amy Kremer (Chairman of the Tea Party Express). More information on these hosts is provided at the end of this email.

Guests on the program will include national conservative figures who will be invited to speak as to why they believe Barack Obama should not be re-elected, and to highlight a better path forward for America. The program is modeled after Jerry Lewis’s Labor Day Telethons where individuals came together for a shared cause. Our shared cause: the need to defeat Barack Obama and fight for a future with greater liberty, economic prosperity and respect for the Constitutional principles this nation was founded on.

ABOUT THE HOSTS:

Melanie Morgan is a nationally acclaimed radio and television personality. She has had a long and distinguished career as a television news reporter (reporting from hot spots around the globe for ABC News) and most prominently as an award-winning radio host, including most recently Talk Radio Network’s “America Morning News” and a long stint at the San Francisco conservative News/Talk powerhouse KSFO 560 AM. She is also author of the Amazon.com bestseller, American Mourning, which detailed the struggles endured by families who lost loved ones in Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom. She is a founding Co-Chairman of Move America Forward, the nation’s largest pro-troop non-profit group that has sent over 120 tons of care packages to hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops stationed abroad. Her annual TroopAThon broadcast has featured an array of distinguished guests including Rush Limbaugh, Gov. Sarah Palin, Gen. David Petraeus, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Oliver North, Dennis Miller, Dr. Laura Schlesinger, Ann Coulter, Dennis Praeger, Andrew Breitbart, Michelle Malkin, Monica Crowley, Gary Sinese, Kelsey Grammer, Jon Voigt, John Ondrasik and many others.

Lloyd Marcus is one of the most beloved conservative activists in America. A singer/songwriter, Lloyd has performed at hundreds of venues across America. In 2008 he was a leader of the 40-city “Stop Obama” tour which included his performance of a song honoring Gov. Sarah Palin. He has performed at every one of the rallies that comprised the Tea Party Express’s four national bus tours which included his hit song, “American Tea Party Anthem.” A frequent guest on national and local television programs across America, he has been an outspoken critic of President Barack Obama, and decried the unseemly tactics used by liberals to silence conservatives by accusing them of racism. He is founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Conservative People of Color, and currently serves as Vice Chairman of The Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama Committee.

Amy Kremer is Chairman of the Tea Party Express, one of the largest tea party organizations in America. She has led the group to become one of the most powerful political forces in the nation, regularly defeating the establishments of both political parties in policy matters and in political campaigns. A featured speaker at this year’s CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference), she has also appeared as a representative of the tea party movement on hundreds of national and local television programs – including a memorable performance where she managed to subdue the sometimes unruly hosts of ABC’s The View. She has helped to organize several hundred tea party rallies across America and is currently putting together one of the first presidential debates that will feature all of the major Republican candidates for president, which will be broadcast live on CNN.

U.S. Government Questioned Obama CitizenshipThe U.S. government is on record questioning President Obama's citizenship status as early as when he was 5 years old, stating it lacked documentation to determine his citizenshipWorldnetdaily

U.S. Draws Up Afghan Exit StrategyU.S. military officers in Afghanistan have drawn up preliminary proposals to withdraw as many as 5,000 troops from the country in July and as many as 5,000 more by the year's endFox

Obama's Half-Brother Runs Questionable CharityPresident Obama's half-brother runs an off-the-books American charity that claims to support poor Kenyans -- but it lies about its federal status and no one knows how it spends its moneyNew York Post

Justice Department Pursues 'Strange' Probe of Execution DrugThe White House has launched a quiet campaign to seize execution drugs, contributing to a de facto death penalty freeze in some statesFox

Of InterestMilton Friedman: In Defense of CapitalismIn a short 2 1/2 minutes, Milton Friedman effectively destroys all arguments against free market capitalism.RightBias

Dear friends: I never send out 'serial' emails, as most are intrusive. This one is different: this is a promo for a documentary on the men who fought in WWII, who are passing on at a rate of 1,000 a day. My father and all my uncles were among those who fought: somehow my father managed to survive 4 years aboard a destroyer escort in the Pacific.

This keeps their story alive as we head toward the 70th anniversary of the start of the most awful war ever.

Please watch and forward: it helps the film. James Dalessandro, author of "The Damndest Finest Ruins" Executive Producer and Author "Citizen Jane."

"...In Sacramento, Governor Jerry Brown is planning to close California’s $26.6 billion structural deficit through spending cuts and tax extensions. Opposition has been spirited but less contentious than expected, probably because of the size of the budget hole. But one item of Brown’s plan—something that would save about $1.7 billion annually—has generated heated debates between local officials and the new administration. The governor has proposed eliminating California’s approximately 400 redevelopment agencies (RDAs.)

Greenville, S.C. - The first Republican presidential primary debate – with some of the key contenders AWOL — kicked off the nomination fight Thursday with shots at President Barack Obama’s domestic and foreign policy. The faceoff, co-sponsored by Fox News and the South Carolina Republican Party, came just days after Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed. Bin Laden’s death sharply reoriented the debate among the five candidates here — the first 15 minutes were spent on foreign policy — not jobs, the economy or the national debt, which have been key issues for the GOP.

President Barack Obama, center, and former President George W. Bush, right, show a united front in January 2010 in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake

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WASHINGTON - George W. Bush won't be at Ground Zero with President Obama Thursday in part because he feels his team is getting short shrift in the decade-long manhunt for Osama Bin Laden.

"[Bush] viewed this as an Obama victory lap," a highly-placed source told the Daily News Wednesday.

Bush's visit to the rubble after the 9/11 attacks was the emotional high point of his presidency, but associates say the invitation to return with his successor was a non-starter.

"He doesn't feel personally snubbed and appreciates the invitation, but Obama's claiming all the credit and a lot of other people deserve some of it," the source added.

"Obama gave no credit whatsoever to the intelligence infrastructure the Bush administration set up that is being hailed from the left and right as setting in motion the operation that got Bin Laden. It rubbed Bush the wrong way."

Bush spokesman David Sherzer said Bush "appreciated the invite, but has chosen in his post-presidency to remain largely out of the spotlight."

Associates familiar with his thinking say Bush does not believe Obama or his handlers wanted to exploit his presence. But the tag-team idea "was for the benefit of Obama, and Obama withheld credit from people Bush believes deserved it," a source said.

Asked about the matter at Thursday's White House briefing, spokesman Jay Carney said "this is a moment of unity for Americans and a moment to recall the unity that existed in this country in the wake of the attacks on 9/11.

"We completely understand that he's not able to come, but…the invitation was made in that spirit," Carney added.

Since leaving office in 2009 the 43rd president has stuck to a rigorous code of silence about criticizing Obama,

I thought the Bush Communications office was a joke. The current bunch is making the Bushies look like Mensa members.

.....It is abundantly clear that Jay Carney Barker can't keep his story straight.

"In terms of the operational details, we have gotten to the point where we cannot cross lines because of the necessity for preserving the methods and operational techniques and capabilities of the kinds of forces that were used in this case. We've gone to the limit of our ability to do that and still maintain some of the things that we need to maintain and be kept secret. So, that's a long way of beginning my answer to say that we've revealed a lot of information, we've been as forthcoming as facts as we can be. A lot of information came out quickly, when we needed to clarify some of the information we had, as more information came in, we provided that. But in terms of further details of the operation, I don't have any for you," White House press secretary Jay Carney said at today's briefing.

While the public lauds the president’s performance killing Bin Laden, he got no overall bounce in a new Newsweek/Daily Beast poll. Also: Obama vs. Bush on terror and Obama vs. Trump in 2012. Plus, full coverage of Osama bin Laden.

How much overall boost did President Obama get from the capture of Osama Bin Laden? None, according to an exclusive Newsweek / Daily Beast poll encompassing 1,200 American adults, conducted in the two days immediately before the president’s Sunday announcementabout the terrorist leader, and then the two days immediately after.

Specifically, Americans like the way he handled the situation, giving him strong results in strength and decision-making (55 percent now term him a strong leader overall, and 63 percent do so in the area of terrorism). Yet he did not get any overall bump in terms of approval rating, or electoral support. His approval rate was unchanged—48 approve, 49 disapprove, both before and after. There was also no statistical change in whether Obama deserves reelection—40/48 before, 39/49 after.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 26% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Thirty-six percent (36%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -10 (see trends).

The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates are also available on Twitter and Facebook

Daily updates are based upon nightly telephone interviews and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. As a result, two-thirds of the interviews for today’s update were conducted beforenews was released about the death of Osama bin Laden. Thursday will be the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted afterthat event. Results from the single night of data collected on Monday shows a modest improvement in the president’s Approval Index rating. However, there was no improvement in the president’s overall approval rating. Caution should always be used when interpreting a single night sample from a tracking poll.

The president’s job approval ratings have been remarkably stable over the past year-and-a-half when viewed on a month-by-month basis.

We know the battle isn't over, but let's celebrate this important moment in America's history.

There's plenty of parking in the Whole Foods parking lot (exit 101 at DeLong, go over the freeway, and stay to your right...Whole Foods is right there). If you have to work or come late, no worries. Come when you can.

I just knew it was going to be a team of Navy Seals who took out Osama Bin Laden. And I was right! I am thinking and praying for Marc Alan Lee, the first Navy Seal to die in the fighting in Iraq, and his mother Debbie Lee...my friend and hero. How proud Marc must be of his fellow Seals who eliminated the scourage of humanity, sending him into the depths of hell.

I am proud of all the young men and women, both military and civilian , who have lost their lives or their limbs in pursuit of the evil that visited America's shores September 11th, 2001. God Bless each and every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine and Coast Guardsmen who have served in this decade long battle.

Please do something to show your gratitude to our troops who have been fighting and winning this war by going to www.moveamericaforward.com and sending a care package and a message of gratitude today...it's the least we can do. Really.

"..I’m so proudthat it was a Navy SEAL team that finally got Osama bin Laden, and I just wish Marc could be here with his fellow SEALs to share this with the country he died protecting. Marc graduated from his SEAL training shortly before 9/11 and when that heinous attack was carried out by Al Qaeda, Marc wanted more than anything to see justice done. I know he’s watching with satisfaction from Heaven today.

We want to thank all of our troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the intelligence community who have been hunting bin Laden for years. This is yet another victory for Americans and for justice for all the victims of radical Islamic terrorists around the world. Where would we be without our troops? They have proven that they have the dedication and patience to complete any mission, to deal with any threat and we want to thank our troops for that.

"It’s also important to thank all of those American patriots who have supported and stood by our troops through all the years. They have been patient as well, for they have continued to send support to our troops even when the media and some politicians were NOT there for the troops. At Move America Forward we will be continuing our mission of supporting our troops, as they are still deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and until all of our troops come home we will continue sending our support and our care packages to our brave troops on the front lines. We invite all Americans to joins us.

We’ve been sending support to our brave troops for years now, and we will continue doing so until their mission is complete. Even though Osama Bin Laden may now be dead, Al Qaeda is still a very real threat, and our troops will still be fighting them. Send some support now!"

The irony of BP stuffing golf balls to stop a geyser of gushing oil from the gulf is apparently lost on President Obama...or not.

"...The First Golfer brought his duffer’s game to Martha’s Vineyard this week. By Thursday, Mr. Obama had logged three golf games in four days, appearing at one island course after another. He spent five hours on Monday afternoon playing 18 holes at the Farm Neck Golf Club here, two and a half hours on Tuesday playing nine holes at Mink Meadows Golf Club in Vineyard Haven, and several hours playing Thursday afternoon at the Vineyard Golf Club in Edgartown."

BP engineers struggled Friday to plug a gushing oil well a mile under the sea, but as of late in the day they had made little headway in stemming the flow.

Multimedia

Amid mixed messages about problems and progress, the effort — called a “top- kill” — continued for a third day, with engineers describing a painstaking process of trying to plug the hole, using different weights of mud and sizes of debris like golf balls and tires, and then watching and waiting. They cannot use brute force because they risk making the leak worse if they damage the pipes leading down to the well.

Despite an apparent lack of progress, officials said they would continue with the process for another 48 hours, into Sunday, before giving up and considering other options, including another containment dome to try to capture the oil. "

Party leaders and campaign operatives -- on nearly a daily basis -- approach challenger candidates seeking to disrupt the established political order with a simple message: Get out or else.

And so, the report this morning that former President Bill Clinton -- allegedly offering him an unpaid advisory role on an intelligence board in exchange for getting him to drop his primary bid against Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) -- would not normally raise much of a stir in official Washington. was tasked by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to make such an approach to Rep. Joe Sestak

That the story has become a major controversy, a regular fixture on cable news chat shows and a momentum-killer for Sestak following his come-from behind victory against Specter in last week's Pennsylvania primary is evidence of how the White House mishandled the controversy, according to conversations with several high-level Democratic strategists.

"How do you make something out of nothing?," asked one such operative who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the matter. "By acting guilty when you're innocent."

Another senior party official said that the White House "has a lot of egg on their face" and described the events as a "PR nightmare".

The unfolding of events since Sestak told a local television host -- albeit obliquely -- in February that he had received a job offer from the White House speaks to one of the oldest political adages about the presidency: stonewalling almost never works. (The full White House report on the matter is here.)

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was repeatedly asked in the intervening months about Sestak's allegation but deflected comment. As the story became a bigger deal in the wake of Sestak's primary victory, the statements out of the White House grew more and more opaque -- as Gibbs insisted over the weekend that "nothing inappropriate happened" but refusing to engage in the more basic "what happened question."

“The president has not been as visible as he should have been on this, and he’s going to pay a political price for it, unfortunately,” Landrieu told POLITICO. “But he’s going down tomorrow, he’s made some good announcements today, and if he personally steps up his activity, I think that would be very helpful.”

Landrieu’s comments came as Obama spoke to reporters in the East Room of the White House, defending his administration’s response to the ecological disaster. The president plans to head to the Gulf to inspect the oil spill on Friday.

“Those who think that we were either slow in our responses or lacked urgency don’t know the facts,” Obama said Thursday. “This has been our highest priority since this crisis occurred.”

DeVore for California today called upon Carly Fiorina to address, in detail, her critical vulnerabilities to Barbara Boxer should she become the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in California. Though Fiorina often repeats the talking point that she will "hold Boxer accountable," she is a deeply flawed public figure whose weaknesses present multiple opportunities for the well-funded Democratic machine to attack her.

Among Fiorina's potentially crippling vulnerabilities that may allow Barbara Boxer to attack her, rather than engage in issues of importance to Californians:

-- Her disastrous sojourn as Chairman and CEO at Hewlett-Packard, which resulted in her firing by its board and her total lack of corporate-leadership employment in the five years since. -- Her stewardship, while at HP, of a relationship with Redington Gulf in Dubai, explicitly meant to circumvent U.S. export restrictions against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Fiorina named this firm “Wholesaler of the Year” in 2003. -- Her record presiding over the still-emerging scandal of HP-related bribery in Russia. -- Her record, during her leadership at Lucent, presiding over accounting irregularities cited in an SEC complaint expected to go to trial in June. -- Her revisionist praise of Islamic civilization mere days after the 9/11 attacks. -- Her long record of political flip-flops, including past support for much of Boxer's own agenda, including the Wall Street Bailout (TARP), portions of the Obama stimulus, cap-and-trade, weakening Proposition 13, Internet taxation, Jesse Jackson, and more -- including claiming to be a “life-long” Republican even though she cast her first ballot in 2000 at the age of 44.

These flaws are documented in multiple public sources, including the just-unveiled website carlycal.com.

Chuck DeVore said, "This year, Republicans have an opportunity to confront Barbara Boxer on substantive issues and fundamental principles relating to debt, taxes, and the role of government vs. our unalienable rights. If we do that, we win. The only way we don't win is if Boxer can shift the debate from those issues to the personal baggage of her opponent.

"In light of this, I call upon Carly Fiorina to explain, in detail and before the June 8th primary, exactly how she plans to answer the inevitable Democratic attacks on all these points. She owes it to Republicans to explain why her manifest and multiple weaknesses won't sink our chance to retire Boxer."

For more than a month, the American Gulf Coast has been threatened by a gigantic oil spill, caused by the April 21 explosion of a British Petroleum deepwater rig. Yet unlike five years ago — when the media were quick to put the onus on the Bush administration for its handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina — for four weeks, ABC, CBS and NBC failed to scrutinize the administration’s ineffectual response to this disaster, now blasted even by such Democratic stalwarts as ex-Clinton operative James Carville.

On Wednesday’s Good Morning America, Carville accused the President of “political stupidity” for not making the oil spill a top priority. “It just looks like he’s not involved in this! Man, you have got to get down here and take control of this! Put somebody in charge of this and get this thing moving! We’re about to die down here!” Carville specifically faulted Obama for not deploying sufficient federal resources to protect the valuable marshes in southern Louisiana.

While the media fancy themselves as government watchdogs, such criticisms were virtually absent from the first four weeks of the networks’ oil spill coverage. MRC analysts studied all 157 stories about the spill aired on ABC, CBS and NBC’s evening newscasts from April 21 through May 20. We discovered that only two of those stories (a measly 1%) actually centered on evaluations of how Obama and his top officials were handling the crisis, while another seven stories included minor references to criticisms of the administration. Thus, in the first full month after the spill, 95 percent of network evening news stories were devoid of any criticism of the President and top officials.

President Barack Obama reacts as he enters to speak at a fundraiser for Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., in San Francisco, Tuesday, May 25, 2010.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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Making a second fundraising appearance for Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Cali) on Tuesday evening, President Barack Obama got heckled by a protester demanding quicker action on Don't Ask Don't Tell. And then he heckled the heckler.

From the pool report:

Speaking to a larger crowd and this time from teleprompters, Obama was in the middle of, as he called it, a trip down memory lane about the economy, when a man yelled out: "Move faster on 'don't ask, don't tell.'"

"It's good to see ya," Obama said to the man as the crowd started to boo, and the man continued to shout something your pooler couldn't hear amid all the noise

"I have to say, you know what? I saw this guy down in LA," Obama said. (POTUS was also heckled about DADT at the last Boxer fundraiser he headlined in Los Angeles.)

"Two points I want to make," Obama said of the heckler, "he really should like buy a ticket to, if he wants to demonstrate, buy a ticket to a guy who doesn't support his point of view."

One of the problems with Carly Fiorina is that critique or contradiction of her is universally received as lèse majesté: she simply cannot abide anything she perceives as a diminishment of her public stature, and so she lashes out. It's a personality flaw illustrated by the LAT's Robin Abcarian in her portrait of Fiorina:

Fortunately for Carly, this will never happen in the general election or the United States Senate.

It's in that light that we must view Fiorina's rather nasty and contemptuous response to Chuck DeVore at today's debate, following his criticism of her for supporting 2000's Califorina Proposition 26. The story on that, by the bye, is here:

I don't have an exact transcript of what she said -- there was a reference to "dog-paddling" and DeVore's poll numbers -- so I'll just go with the version provided by the official Carly for California Twitter account:

"With President Obama getting ready to touch down in San Francisco Tuesday to fundraise for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Barbara Boxer, the Republican U.S. Senate race has gone wild -- breaking out the heroes (Jack Bauer of "24"), the blimps and even some fabulously photogenic boxers to counterpunch the POTUS limelight.

And just in time: the Boxer campaign just announced the Democratic Senator has raised $2 million in the current reporting period and now has $9.6 million on hand for the 2010 campaign.

First, we gotta give it to GOP Assemblyman Chuck DeVoreof Irvine, the U.S. Senate candidate, who manages to ride the wave of tonight's fabulous grand two-hour finale of "24" -- a "favorite of conservative viewers" -- with his own hugely entertaining, tongue-in-cheek spot.

"Which person would Jack Bauer want as HIS Senator?'' the announcer ominously asks. Of course: the guy who "mows his own lawn -- and can thrown a mean hand grenade."

This is one U.S. Senate race ad that features no waterboarding and no mention of "Drop the gun! NOW!" -- but still delivers on the action:

In a stunning, newly released YouTube video, the California Republican Congressman and member of the House Judiciary Committee has put together a Jobsgate montage of White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak in a veritable orgy of denial, evasion, and just plainly obvious dishonesty that could do serious damage not just to the White House but the U.S. Senate candidacy of Sestak.. (Hat tip to our friend Ben Barrack, a talk show host on KTEM 1400 in Texas who maintains awebsiteand; has written on Sestak at the American Thinker.)

The tape was released hours before Sestak and Gibbs were scheduled to appear as guests on Sunday national TV talk showsthis weekend. In a statement released by Issa, who is the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform as a well as a senior member of Judiciary, the Congressman said:

For months, a United States Congressman has stated that the White House offered him a job in exchange for not running in an election -- we call this a bribe. Despite being asked numerous times, the White House has not refuted Congressman Sestak's allegations, but refuses to disclose who offered what and when. So this Administration, that pledged to be a beacon of transparency and change, continues to conceal from the American people the truth about what exactly was said and offered. Until we get direct answers, this White House doesn't have a leg to stand on when they talk about openness and change.

An American hero is taking on Charles "Chuck" Schumer with the enthusiam he once showed for hunting down Obama Bin Laden. Eric Shawn at Fox News.com has more on the story we should pay attention to, and help wherever we can.

"..He took on the Taliban as a clandestine C.I.A. officer, and was one of the first into Kabul during the American invasion in 2001.

Veteran C.I.A. officer Gary Berntsen gained prominence as one of the covert operatives who hunted Osama Bin Laden and spent years going after Al Qaeda terrorists.

Now he has set his sights on a different foe: New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer.

"This is as much of an insurrection against Chuck Schumer in New York as it is an election," says Berntsen, who announced his candidacy as a Republican this weekend.

Berntsen accuses the two term Schumer of supporting policies that have hurt the economy, made America's national security weaker, and believes he is in lock-step with the Obama administration.

"Schumer is a major part of the problem," he says. "He's a force in the Democratic party, he is President Obama's man in the Senate, he is someone who hopes to become the new majority leader."

6566 dayssince Al Gore officially came out with his proclamation of global warming as described in his first book, Earth in the Balance.

And he’s never ONCE conducted a debate to publicly uphold his claims.

SEE GORE’S USEFUL IDIOTS ON VIDEO

Brian Sussman

Brian Sussman led a group of 200 into the streets of Monterey, California to “welcome” Al Gore to town. Gore was speaking at the Golden State Theatre.

“The most amazing thing,” Sussman says, “were my encounters with the absolute fools who are following global warming’s poster boy, Al Gore. They clearly don’t know how to think for themselves. I’m sure if they would honestly and openly read my book, they would realize they are being totally played.”

Reeling from the upside-down results in Pennyslvania where the GOP lost a seat they were expected to gain, the Elephant party has broken out the pom-poms for a win they had no idea was coming....in President Obama's former hometown.

"...Republican Charles Djou has won Hawaii’s special House election, providing a timely boost to a party unnerved by a decisive Democratic victory in a Pennsylvania special House election Tuesday.

Djou got 39 percent of the vote Saturday, according to unofficial returns, followed by state Senate President Colleen Hanabusa at 30 percent and former Democratic Rep. Ed Case at 27 percent.

Djou will serve out the remainder of the term in the seat left vacant by former Democratic Rep. Neil Abercrombie, who resigned to run for governor.

Despite the Honolulu-based district’s overwhelmingly Democratic tilt, the GOP win did not come as a surprise. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee pulled out of the race earlier this month, concluding that, with Case and Hanabusa splitting the Democratic vote, Djou was all but certain to win with a plurality

It is one thing to have no shame and quite another to have no class. Carly Fiorina apparently has neither.

Just a short time ago, Carly was going around making some truly disparaging remarks about Sarah Palin, but she sure was willing and quick to embrace Palin's endorsement. No shame.

Now she is out attacking a military reservist, disparaging his service.

See, in California people get to put a descriptor on their ballot line item describing who they are. Carly put "business executive", even though she hasn't been one since 2005. She really does not want Chuck DeVore to have "military reservist" on his line.

Fiorina's campaign, when contacted, said DeVore is not a military reservist. Have they even bothered checking up on DeVore? If they had, not only would they realize they were disparaging Chuck DeVore's service to his country, but they would hopefully recognize just how petty it is to bicker over a title.

If Fiorina were playing by her own standard for DeVore, she would not be able to put "business executive" down for herself. She'd need something like . . . say . . . "Fired Hewlett Packard CEO" or "California to China Job Exporter".

Let's review DeVore's record. According to DeVore's campaign, "he holds a Reserve commission in the United States Army as a Lieutenant Colonel."

More from the campaign on the specific qualifications is below the fold.

Chuck DeVore enlisted in the United States Army in 1983, and was commissioned an officer in 1986 after working his way through college on an ROTC scholarship. He has served in our nation's armed forces for 27 years. His service record includes:

Service in the OPFOR at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, CA, during the 1991 Gulf War.

Deployment during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, where he came under fire.

Commanding the Headquarters and Headquarters Battery of the 640th Military Intelligence Battalion of the CA Army National Guard.

Service as the state J-1 for the California National Guard.

Chuck DeVore was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 2006, with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger pinning on his rank. In 2007, DeVore transferred from the National Guard to the U.S. Army Reserve: instead of seeking discharge or resigning, as were his options, he elected to become a retired reservist. This means he is still a commissioned officer in the Reserves, and eligible for callup should the nation need him: in other words, a "Military Reservist."

Chuck DeVore's dedicated service has earned his candidacy the endorsement of the California Republican Veterans of America.

It was a world filled with mutants, prostitutes, double-crossed and diabolical leaders. No, not Sacramento, but the sci-fi thriller "Total Recall."

The treacherous femme fatale played by Sharon Stone slowly draws a gun from behind her back as she pleads with the action hero. "Sweetheart, be reasonable. After all, we're married."

The action hero shoots first. "Consider that a divorce," he says in his Austrian accent.

Not long ago, Republicans were so enamored of the foreign-born actor-turned governor that they contemplated trying to change the U.S. Constitution so he could run for president. No more.

It's not all that clear exactly who's divorcing whom. But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who came to office with such high expectations in 2003, and the party that embraced him are so estranged that their differences are irreconcilable.

The California Republican Party delivered a new set of papers last week in the form of a news release calling for the suspension of Assembly Bill 32, the 2006 law that seeks to limit greenhouse gases and carbon emissions. The GOP has all but endorsed the oil industry-funded initiative headed for the November ballot that would derail AB 32.

Citing California's unemployment, California GOP Chairman Ron Nehring said in his statement: "The single most significant action we can take as a state is suspending California's global warming tax bill, and we applaud those who have worked so hard to qualify the AB 32 suspension initiative for the November ballot."

Schwarzenegger and the GOP have been growing ever-more distant since the 2005 election debacle when he lost four ballot measures that sought to limit the clout of public employee unions and give the governor more power over budget decisions. The rift deepened when he signed AB 32. Major business groups opposed it; only one Republican legislator voted for it.

The latest PPIC poll is out and shows Carly Fiorina with 25%, Tom Campbell with 23%, and Chuck DeVore with 16%. The margin of error is +/-5%.

The previous PPIC poll showed Fiorina with 24%, Campbell with 23%, and DeVore with 8%.

Here's what you need to know:

Chuck DeVore has doubled his support from the last PPIC poll -- and he's within the margin of error of the front-runner.

The distance from the first to third is narrowed into the single digits -- ground easily covered by Election Day.

As in every poll of this year, Campbell's numbers are static.

This poll was taken after Fiorina's big endorsements, and after the launch of her massive media blitz. All that got her a single point.

Erick Erickson from RedState.com has the best analysis out there! We provide the entire post below.

It is Not Chuck DeVore Who Must Drop Out. Carly Fiorina Must Go.read online here

The myth in the California Senate race is that Tom Campbell has corralled the moderate/left votes, and Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore are splitting the conservative vote between them. In this myth, DeVore, as the lower-polling candidate, functions as a “spoiler” for Fiorina — who would otherwise win with a united conservative base behind her.

As with all myths, this one is wholly false.

Of the major polls taken on CA-Sen in the past 90 days, only five of them explicitly polled on ideological identification: Rasmussen, two SurveyUSA polls, LAT/USC, and Field. A survey of those five polls reveals the following:

2) Tom Campbell, contrary to myth, has his base in self-identified conservatives, and leads among them — even in categories in which he is antagonistic toward the ideological position, such as pro-lifers and gun owners.

3) There is little evidence of movement from one candidate to another, and hence of any “spoiler” role. The only such evidence is found in the SurveyUSA polls, in which Fiorina losses are almost exactly matched by DeVore gains; if sustained in other data sets, this arguably makes Fiorina a “spoiler” for DeVore, but not vice-versa.

The bottom line is that the DeVore-as-spoiler myth is a falsehood perpetrated by an increasingly worried and anxious Fiorina campaign that is already seeking to cast blame for its failures on third parties. There is no data to support it.

NOTES: In this, a hypothetical matchup against Boxer, we see that the leader in conservative affections is Chuck DeVore, with Campbell second — and Fiorina a decided third.

—————————————————————-

POLL: SurveyUSADATE: May 10th, 2010

–Conservatives–Campbell — 31%Fiorina — 25%DeVore — 17%

–Pro-Life–Campbell — 30%Fiorina — 23%DeVore — 19%

–Gun Owner–Campbell — 34%Fiorina — 21%DeVore — 19%

NOTES: Here we see again Campbell leading decisively even among conservatives whom he stands in opposition to — pro-lifers and gun owners. Also note the decline in Fiorina’s standings, and the near-identical rise in DeVore’s, versus the preceding SurveyUSA poll — our only evidence of any “spoiler” role.

—————————————————————-

POLL: SurveyUSADATE: April 22nd, 2010

–Conservatives–Campbell — 31%Fiorina — 28%DeVore — 15%

–Pro-Life–Campbell — 31%Fiorina — 27%DeVore — 15%

–Gun Owner–Campbell — 34%Fiorina — 28%DeVore — 15%

NOTES: Here we see Campbell leading decisively even among conservatives whom he stands in opposition to — pro-lifers and gun owners.

—————————————————————-

POLL: LAT/USCDATE: April 6th, 2010

–Conservatives–Fiorina — 30%Campbell — 28%DeVore — 10%

NOTES: This, nearly 60 days back, is the only poll that ever showed Fiorina leading among conservatives — proof that she is capable of a lead among conservatives, and is not held back from one by any “spoiler.”

—————————————————————

POLL: FieldDATE: March 18th, 2010

–Conservatives–Campbell — 27%Fiorina — 25%DeVore — 13%

NOTES: We see that Campbell has a narrow lead among conservatives here.

—————————————————————-

Now let’s look at the PPIC polling, which is even more damning for Fiorina.

FIorina — 25%Campbell — 23%DeVore — 16%

The margin of error is 5% in this poll and it comes after all the big endorsements for Fiorina from pro-lifers to Sarah Palin. How does it compare to the last one? Well, On March 20th, PPIC had this:

Fiorina — 24%Campbell — 23%DeVore – 8%

PPIC is the only poll to show Fiorina in the lead and after two months she has gained only one point and Chuck DeVore has gained 8 points.

We know from the real world — Marlin Stutzman — that two weeks out in Indiana he was at 8%, the week before the race he was at 18%, and the day of the election he got 30%.

The trends, polls, and other data are clear: Carly Fiorina has reached the glass ceiling. Chuck DeVore is going up. And it is Carly who is a drain on Chuck, not the other way around.

A conservative whose first name starts with a “C” can win the primary and beat Barbra Boxer. But that person is not named Carly. Rather that person is named Chuck.

SAN FRANCISCO, May 19, 2010—Support for Meg Whitman has plummeted 23 points since March, and she is now in a far closer race with Steve Poizner to become the Republican nominee for governor. These are among the results of a statewide survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) with support from The James Irvine Foundation.

Less than a month before the June primary, Whitman leads Poizner 38 percent to 29 percent among Californians likely to vote in the Republican primary. A third of likely voters (31%) are undecided. In January, Whitman led Poizner by 30 points (41% Whitman, 11% Poizner, 44% undecided) and in March, by 50 points (61% Whitman, 11% Poizner, 25% undecided).

Whitman's support has dropped at least 17 points across all demographic groups, with the sharpest declines among those who are not college graduates (29 points) and those whose annual household incomes are at least $80,000 (28 points). Support for Poizner has increased sharply across demographic groups, but a plurality in each group would still vote for Whitman.

The Republican senate primary race is also close, with Carly Fiorina (25%) and Tom Campbell (23%) deadlocked, as they were in March (24% Fiorina, 23% Campbell), and support doubling for Chuck DeVore (16% today, 8% March) among GOP likely voters. Thirty-six percent are undecided. Fiorina and Campbell have similar levels of support among men (29% Fiorina, 25% Campbell, 17% Devore), with 29 percent undecided. Support for the two candidates is also similar among women (21% Fiorina, 20% Campbell, 14% DeVore), but 44 percent of women are still undecided.

"This election is very much in flux," says Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO. "Voters are alienated. Republicans are struggling to figure out what to do about it and what their party stands for. The Democrats—with their candidates unchallenged—aren't going through this soul searching."

Voters are taking baseball bats to the idols of American politics. Incumbents should be very afraid, as Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., already learned. The candidates themselves are not the only endangered idols. Party bosses and traditional power players in American politics also find their positions threatened. Pennsylvania's SEIU and AFL-CIO demonstrated their powerlessness in their all-out effort on Specter's behalf. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a main architect of the Kentucky Republican Party and a long-time GOP leader in the U.S. Senate, couldn’t deliver 40 percent of the primary vote to his hand-picked candidate.

The most fragile idol of all appears to be President Obama. Like McConnell, Obama remains popular with his base, but his ability to sway voters' opinions appears to be non-existent.

The state is sending an unmistakably clear message to California - Bleep off!

Getty Images

An Arizona utility commissioner said he's willing to pull the plug on Los Angeles if the city goes through with a boycott of his state.

In a letter to the city of LA, a member of Arizona's power commission said he would ask Arizona utility companies to cut off the power supply to Los Angeles. LA gets about 25 percent of its power from Arizona.

"That is one commissioner who has that idea -- whether he can do that or not is another idea," said LA Councilman Dennis Zine. "They are the ones who have to make the move, not us."

The commissioner's power grid play is in response to the city's approval of a resolution directing city staff to consider which contracts with Arizona can be terminated.

“Senate Candidate Richard Blumenthal dishonored all U.S. Veterans … and should withdraw from Race”

FAIRFIELD, CALIF.– Warriors for Congress today called for Richard Blumenthal, candidate for U.S. Senate in Connecticut, to withdraw from the race for repeatedly lying about service in Vietnam.

“Senate Candidate Richard Blumenthal dishonored all U.S. veterans when he lied about serving this country in the Vietnam War, and he should withdraw from the race,” said Melanie Morgan, chairman of Warriors for Congress. “If he’ll lie about being a war veteran even as our country fights the War on Terror, he is not trustworthy in any time.

“Career politicians like Blumenthal are the reason citizens don’t trust politicians,” said Morgan, a renowned advocate for U.S. veterans.

The New YorkTimes reported that Blumenthal repeatedly said he had served in Vietnam, but he never did.

In fact, “he obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records,” the Times reports.

Blumenthal defended himself by saying he had said a “few misplaced words.”

“After reviewing his record, including video of Blumenthal saying he was in Vietnam, we aren’t buying his excuses,” Morgan said. “It’s time for him to do the right thing and remove himself from the Senate race. Our country has had enough of slick and untrustworthy politicians. Blumenthal owes it to veterans and those serving in warzones now to step down. He is not worthy as a candidate for Senate.”

Warriors for Congress (www.Warriorsforcongress.com) Melanie Morgan and Catherine Moy started Warriors for Congress to continue their missions of supporting American troops and veterans and to help Warriors help our country.

Today is Armed Forces Day, so I thought to remember our brave soldiers of World War II by spending some quiet time with the National Archivesphoto collection online.

As I sat looking at the inspiring, sad, and horrific photo images of the war, I began to think about our primary election in California which is now underway with absentee voting, to be followed by the actual election June 8.

Why would any American who loves this country vote for a candidate who has never voted or has rarely voted?

In California, there are three very wealthy candidates running for statewide office who have rarely voted in an election most of their adult lives.

As I look at these pictures of World War II and the sacrifices that were made for us, I am disgusted that decades later, we have spoiled aristocrats running for public office, who think that their time spent in pursuit of wealth are somehow an excuse for not participating in the democratic system which enables their cushy lifestyles. Here in California, are we “so far gone” down the path of materialism and “appearances” that having candidates who can spend their own millions, is more important than a sense of history and sacrifice for country? These candidates say their voting record isn’t important enough to be a factor in how you vote.

I don’t agree.

Here are the three candidates for statewide office in California who do not deserve your vote because they have not voted in elections most of their adult lives:

Meg Whitman for governor:

Meg is a billionaire, the former CEO of eBay. By anyone’s definition, she has benefitted from the many blessings and advantages of American capitalism. Her opponent, Steve Poizner,has detailed how Whitman, age 53, has not voted for 28 years.

Here is a television adexplaining that Whitman didn’t vote for Ronald Reagan for president, for Pete Wilson as governor, and missed at least 100 elections where she could have voted on tax issues.

Whitman denies the charge, but as yet, has not produced proof that she actually did vote for those 28 years.

Carly is a millionaire, because she was given $21 million dollars for getting fired as CEO of Hewlett Packard. BeforeCarly’s announcement to run for office last August, it was publicized widely that she has a very “spotty” voting record.

“Officials in Morris County, N.J., said records show she registered to vote there in 1997 but did not vote in a single election and was dropped from the voter rolls in 2005 as inactive.

Before that, Fiorina lived in Montgomery County, Md., where the registrar’s office said they reviewed state databases and found no listing of Fiorina’s voter registration.

Fiorina strongly disputes the voting records as “just wrong,” her spokeswoman, Beth Miller, said. Miller said that Fiorina has no records to prove her past voting record and has acknowledged her failure to vote in some elections. But while “she didn’t vote all the time … she did vote,” the spokeswoman added.

In June, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Fiorina had voted in just five of 18 national, state and local elections in which she was eligible to cast a ballot since she registered in Santa Clara County in 2000, according to public records. At the time, Fiorina’s chief of staff, Deborah Bowker, said, “It’s never good not to vote.”

By last November, 4 months later and an announced candidate for Senate, Carly was “sorry”, but her staff was “still looking” for proof of voting records for her.

In December, Fiorina admitted her poor voting record, though not in detail. “Shame on me,” she said.

Yes, indeed. Shame on her.

Vote for Chuck DeVore for Senate in California, a state assemblyman and military reservist who hasvoted all his life.

Damon Dunn for Secretary of State:

Damon Dunnis 33 years old, African-American, good-looking, a former NFL football player and a “millionaire” real estate investor. He is the California Republican party’s “poster child” black candidate for 2010, even though he just moved here a few months ago to run for office.

Damon Dunn wants to be the person in charge of running fair elections in California and he has only voted once in his life, last spring. Unlike Meg and Carly, he’s not sorry at all. He’s very “flip” about it.

“Who better to reach a non-voter than a recovering non-voter?” the Republican businessman from Irvine said in an interview Friday, employing what has become, of necessity, an often-uttered line.”

Damon Dunn’seligibility for office in California is being challenged in court because he may not have lived here long enough.

Dunn’s challenger in the Republican primary for Secretary of State of California is Dr. Orly Taitz Esq.,a dentist and attorney. She is well-known for her participation in several lawsuits challenging the eligibility of Barack Obama to be president of the United States. She is a Russian immigrant who has voted in every single American election available to her once she became a citizen. You can say what you want about whether she is controversial for her brave challenge to the President of the United States. She is a Patriot, she plays by the rules and she demands the same of everyone else, especially the people who run for office.

Vote for Orly for Secretary of State so that we have an honest person who will do her best to stop fraud in our elections.

If you are voting in California and think you should vote for Carly, Meg, or Damon even though they never thought voting was important until now, take a look at these photos of those who fought for our right to vote and then feel free to leave me a comment and tell my why a candidate’s voting record is not important.

At a press conference on Thursday Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, California Democrats, along with Senator Maria Cantwell, Washington Democrat, and Senator Jeff Merkley, Oregon Democrat, presented legislation calling for a permanent ban on oil drilling off the West Coast. Democratic Senators Patty Murray of Washington and Ron Wyden of Oregon, while absent at today's presser, are also part of the coalition, according to Senator Boxer.

Before showing pictures of oils soaked wildlife as a result of the BP oil spill, Ms. Boxer explained the legislation saying this bill would ensure that "there will never be offshore oil gas drilling off the west coast of our nation."

While President Obama placed an executive order on West Coast drilling until 2017, the six Democratic Senators' legislation goes further.

"We know very clearly that that moratorium is dependent on his presidency, his being there, and that there is no permanent protection for us. This is our only route to go," said Senator Boxer, Chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee.

I later asked Senator Boxer, given California's recent history of brown outs and black outs, what kind reliable energy could Californians rely on if she is looking to eradicate the oil industry on the West Coast? The green energy industry is too intermittent and why not consider nuclear energy instead? "If all of the people in the country for 25 days had the proper tire pressure in their cars you would replace all of the oil," she said. "There is...this is such a little bit of oil in this area only enough to power the country for, you know, a year or so. So 25 days of people doing the proper pressure would replace it."

"I don't think that's funny."

Of course not. It all makes perfect sense. So let's stop drilling and check our air pressure, OK?

"..I am offering an open, heartfelt letter to Carly Fiorina, GOP candidate for U.S. Senate in California. I hope many people will send it to her and she will take this advice. I give this advice, as someone not paid for this commentary by any individual or by any campaign, though I do support Chuck DeVore. I write this to you Carly, because I am your age, I have been covering politics since the late 1970s and I have seen a lot of candidates waste money and go down in flames because they refuse to accept reality. I also, like you, care about California, and care deeply about getting this country back. "

After reading this morning’s post from Erick on the CA Sen Rasmussen poll, I checked out the crosstabs and read a few other interesting articles - one of which is a Poll of Tea Partiers. What I read seems to support the theory that the late movement and momentum is in Chuck DeVore’s favor.

First point - The Rasmussen crosstabs.

Lets take a peek…

Chuck DeVore has the youth (18-29 year olds), with 47% versus Campbell’s 40%, and Fiorina’s 35%. Chuck ranks highest in Republican and conservative support, at 89%/70%, with Campbell at 88%/69% and Fiorina at 87%/66%, this while still beating Fiorina with moderates and Democrats.

Looking at the different economic demographics, it appears that DeVore has the strongest middle class support of the three Republicans. Chuck DeVore is also tied in the “very unfavorables,” at 12%, with Campbell while Fiorina’s nearly doubles their negatives with 21%.

As Joshua Trevino said in a press release “Fiorina performs weakly across the board, without a single lead in any of the poll’s demographic groups.”

Continuing the above thread...take a look at the list of businesses and jobs which have left the state since 1990. The list is so long you might fall asleep before the end. Again, California has plenty of its own problems. Leave AZ alone.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.- Democrat Alan Mollohan's 28-year run in the House of Representatives is over.With 71 percent of the precincts reporting, state Sen. Mike Oliverio had nearly 56 percent of the vote compared to Mollohan's 44 percent.Tuesday's vote made Mollohan the first House incumbent to lose his seat this year. Mollohan was dogged by ethical questions, and the more conservative Oliverio ran an aggressive campaign portraying him as corrupt and disconnected. Conservative media rallied around Oliverio, along with anti-abortion groups angry over Mollohan's support of health care reform.

In 1995 and 1996, future Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was involved in a bizarre controversy in which the Clinton White House was accused of siding with an eco-terrorist group locked in a standoff with federal agents deep in the woods of Oregon.

The incident led to an investigation by House Republicans, who concluded that a staffer on the White House Council on Environmental Quality tipped off the environmental radicals to impending action by U.S. Forest Service law enforcement agents -- a leak that Forest Service officials believed endangered the lives of their agents on the ground.

Kagan, at the time an associate White House counsel, had no role in leaking the feds' plans to the radicals, but House Committee on Natural Resources investigators concluded she shirked her responsibility by not searching for the source of the leak or pushing for punishment of the leaker.

"Nothing was ever done by Elena Kagan to learn the details about the leaks, or to identify the leaker and ensure that proper punishment occurred," the committee’s report concluded.

In fact, investigators found evidence suggesting that Kagan, in internal White House discussions, defended the alleged leaker.

I’ve been around the political block a time or two and have enjoyed my part in recalling former Calif. Gov. Gray Davis and stopping the government from poisoning us with MTBE additives in our gasoline.

But one of the strangest political oddities I’ve witnessed on the left coast was when Sarah Palin endorsed Carly Fiorina over conservative Chuck DeVore.

Palin fans, who gave her a pass when she endorsed her former running-mate Sen. John McCain, went ballistic when she gave Fiorina the nod.

The story has been covered, but the underlying turmoil caused by Palin’s endorsement is still roiling. It has HELPED DeVore as Palin’s followers tossed her under the bus to stand with DeVore. DeVore had one of his top fund-raising days ever after the endorsement. His Facebook Fan numbers have skyrocketed.

He’s a Tea Party favorite. More importantly, he’s a conservative whose star is rising in the S.F. Bay Area – of all places!!This says he CAN win one for the conservative movement.

So, who is the man behind the rocky breakup of Palin and her fans? DeVore would be the clear frontrunner if people knew the real story.

That’s why I’m blogging about this. He IS a story. He IS worthy of your time. And he IS a conservative who can beat Barbara Boxer. He is NOT an establishment, country club Republican, which is why insiders have turned their noses at him and why we should NOT.

Spread the word to all your Facebook friends. Call talk show hosts and let them know you support DeVore. Write letters to the editor. Blog. Send smoke signals. Just get the word out.

"..Good news: more and more Americans are figuring out that annexing the core functions of adulthood to the state involves unacceptable trade-offs. A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey found that 56 percent of Americans believe that the government has become so powerful it constitutes an immediate threat to the freedom and rights of citizens. When only 21 percent of Americans say that Washington operates with the consent of the governed, we face an alarming crisis.

It comes form the SurveyUSA, of which many people are not fans. That said, it's useful to look at the trends from the last SurveyUSA poll to this one. They reveal three things:

Chuck DeVore is surging, with conservatives and core primary-election voters beginning a major shift toward him.

Carly Fiorina is collapsing, as core conservative groups abandon her -- despite a spate of major endorsements.

Tom Campbell remains essentially static.

Going through the cross tabs on relevant groups, the numbers speak for themselves. First, in overall support for each of the three candidates, we see that Fiorina is the only one to decline -- and to just within the margin of error with DeVore:

What?! Meg Whitman endorsing Tom Campbell in the GOP Senate race? Not much of a stretch for many conservative Republians to believe, but it's the OTHER Whitman coming out in support of "The Professor" Tom Campbell.

And that, my friends, definitively settles it. We are no longer confused about who the "true moderate" is in this race.

"We feel he is the candidate which, besides being able to win in the fall...also brings those kinds of characteristics to play to the office that will make him a very effective Senator, and one that can start to solve problems,'' Whitman said in a visit to The Chronicle today. "He's not going to be so partisan that he will refuse to talk to people on the other side of the aisle. That's not the way he works."

John Hinderaker at Powerline has more on the worries articulated on this subject by Congresswoman Michele Bachman.

"...For some time, there have been rumblings that the federal government might try to solve its budgetary problems by nationalizing (i.e., stealing) the money that millions of Americans have set aside for retirement in 401(k) plans and the like. One way they might do this is to confiscate the cash on hand in exchange for a promise to make future payments in the form of an "annuity." An involuntary annuity, in that scenario."

Vice-Chairman Tom Del Beccero insists it is not true and is asking friends of friends to get me to take down the story. (full disclosure: Tom is a friend of mine, and I did not mean to imply that he is in on some nefarious plot involving him personally.)

Jon Fleischman of the Flashreport.org says I am hurting the credibility of the CRP by keeping the story on my website.

Here's my response - "no, not happening."

I am more than happy to print an "official" response from the CRP as soon as they send one to me. They have my email address. It's not hard to find. But those of you who don't know it This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Until then, here's my quote.

Use it liberally.

"I hope you're insisting your key affiliated colleagues at the CRP stop engaging in this underhanded campaign just as much as you're insisting we stop pointing it out."

UPDATE from Jon Fleischmanat Flashreport.org

“The California Republican Party is taking no role, overt or covert, in the United States Senate Republican primary.”

First, the debate: it was great, and the true conservative candidate Assemblyman/U.S. Miltary Reservist Chuck DeVore came across as the clear winner. In case you were busy with Mother's Day, here are the debate highlights.

My friend and uber-blogger Jane Jamison at Uncoverage.net is breaking a doozy of a story today that I'll bet dollars to donuts the MSM will ignore. But I won't, and you shouldn't ignore it either.

If I were a headline writer at the LA Times or San Francisco Chronicle, today's news would read "CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY AFFILIATED OPERATIVES/CARLY FIORINA SLIMES CONSERVATIVE US SENATE CANDIDATE CHUCK DEVORE WITH BACK DOOR ATTACK."

I sincerely apologize for my fixation in the past few weeks on California politics. I am living and breathing it right now. Shortly, we'll be past the primary (June 8th) and I'll get back to the national scene.

“Meg Whitman has been on the air for a very long time. If she survives this primary, she will be on the air seemingly forever. But the positive story that she and her advisors developed is exhausted and she is becoming a tiring presence.”

Let me put it a little less delicately. I am Meg’s age and I can say this where others won’t. Someone who looks like Meg Whitman should not be doing close-ups in television ads non-stop from January to June anywhere for any reason. I wouldn’t and I am cuter than she ."

The DeVore campaign reacted this morning to the stunning and highly disappointing endorsement by Sarah Palin to former HP executive Carly Fiorina for US Senate.

"...there are a lot of questions about Sarah Palin's endorsement of Carly Fiorina this morning -- and enough to merit a mass e-mail to you. Let me begin with two flashbacks. The first, from the '08 campaign:

These two anecdotes are useful reminders in assessing the actual state of relations between Carly Fiorina and Sarah Palin. It would be fascinating to see them in casual conversation now.

Here's how the Fiorina campaign spins this endorsement: from their own press release, a "sign of the groundswell of conservative support building behind her campaign." But -- it's not. It's actually a sign of two very specific things:

1) First, the doubling-down of the McCain '08 team, including the Senator himself, on Fiorina's candidacy. 2) Second, the Fiorina campaign's (accurate) assessment that Chuck DeVore poses an unexpectedly potent threat to her in this final month of the primary.

That's what the Palin endorsement is all about -- and that's why the conservative base, as Peter Hamby at CNN rightly notes, is in revolt over it.

There's no doubt that the Fiorina campaign, led by consultants almost wholly ignorant of -- and in some cases hostile to -- the modern conservative movement, actually does believe that Sarah Palin de facto "delivers" conservatives to her camp. This is a huge misreading of that movement that starkly illustrates just how divorced Carly Fiorina is from the men and women who animate it. Despite running as a self-proclaimed conservative, her approach to conservatism is that of an old-style anthropologist in a strange land: she joins the alien culture, and seeks to identify with it by appropriating its totems.

Well. That's not how it works. This grassroots movement is actually a grassroots movement. Carly Fiorina thinks she can find the sheepdog to corral the sheep. Chuck DeVore knows they're not sheep at all. They're Americans. And they'll make their own decisions."

Mistakes have been made. This is a big one. Maybe Sarah will take it back.

Washington (CNN) – Sarah Palin broke ranks with the conservative movement on Thursday and endorsed former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina in California's Republican Senate primary, prompting a flurry of criticism from many of her loyal supporters.

After Palin announced the endorsement on her Facebook page, a number of her followers questioned why she would side with Fiorina instead of the more conservative candidate in the race, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore.

DeVore has the backing of several leading voices in the conservative movement, including Sen. Jim DeMint, RedState.com editor Erick Erickson and the Tea Party Express.

Though a handful of readers agreed with Palin's decision, most were upset.

"This is very, very disappointing," Rick Sheridan, one of her supporters, posted on Palin's page. "Sarah, you've got to be more careful. This woman does not represent conservative values. And the choice is so clear. Serious damage to your base here."

"Wow, Sarah...I'm saddened and shocked by your decision to endorse Carly Fiorina," commented another backer, Jennifer Goode. "Had you done your research, you would have found that Chuck DeVore is the ONLY true conservative in the California Senate race."

Also in the GOP race is former Rep. Tom Campbell, who has maintained a steady lead over his opponents in recent polls. The Republican nominee will take on Sen. Barbara Boxer in the general election.

The former Alaska governor explained her decision to wade into the primary by taking a shot at Campbell - but she made no mention of DeVore.

"I'm a huge proponent of contested primaries, so I'm glad to see the contest in California's GOP, but I support Carly as she fights through a tough primary against a liberal member of the GOP who seems to bear almost no difference to Boxer, one of the most leftwing members of the Senate," Palin wrote.

"I think the best I can do is point you toward the responses from the conservative base on Palin's Facebook page, and on Twitter: there's a lot of them respectfully but firmly telling the former Governor that she's been misled here. And they're right," he said in an email.

Palin also irked some conservatives earlier this year when she endorsed Sen. John McCain, who elevated Palin to the national stage, in his Senate primary battle against former Rep. J.D. Hayworth.

Her loyalty to McCain may have been a factor in the California race, as well. Fiorina was one of McCain's economic advisers during the presidential campaign, and last year she told reporters: "I share Sarah Palin's values."

Ralph, My neighbor is a "lefty" of sorts (Obama bumper stickers, gung-ho socialized medicine, "guns should be banned", etc.). So a couple months ago I put this sign up in my yard after one of his anti-gun rants at a neighborhood cocktail party.

The sign wasn't up more than an hour before he called the police and wanted them to make me take down the sign.

Fortunately, the officer politely informed him that it was not their job to take such action without a court order and that he had to file a complaint "downtown" first, which would be reviewed by the city attorney to see if it violated any city, county, or state ordinances, which if there was a violation a court order would be sent to the offending party (me) to "remove the sign in seven days".

After several weeks he was informed that the sign was legal (by a quarter of an inch) and there was nothing the city could do, which obviously made him madder.

I tried to smooth things over by inviting him to go shooting with me and my friends at the hunt club but that seemed to make him even more angry. I then asked him if he wanted to go to a Tea Party rally but again he declined my outreach efforts to bring about a better understanding between political and social opponents.

I am at a loss how to reconcile our long relationship (notice I did not say friendship), any suggestions would be welcome.

MSM has taken note of my friend Chuck DeVore - today's San Francisco Chronicle has a front page story here.

"..With a copy of the Constitution tucked in his suit coat pocket, he's appeared at more than 300 events, including many Tea Party gatherings, since starting his campaign shortly after the 2008 presidential election.

A lanky 6-foot-5, he often drives himself around California, stopping to blast updates via Twitter on everything from the burger he is about to devour to criticism of a fellow Republican, Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, for voting with Democrats on a budget plan that raised taxes. "

Arizona congressional candidate Jesse Kelly will be joined by Melanie Morgan, co-founder ofWarriors for Congress. Kelly has his eye on Arizona's eighth district, and with the endorsement of Warriors for Congress, will make a fine addition to Arizona's congressional delegation. Kelly possesses something few have in Washington DC these days: leadership.

This evening Andrea will be asking Kelly about his qualifications, positions on the important issues of the day. Morgan, who has extensive experience in politics and managing large organizations, will be outlining the goals of Warriors for Congress. One thing's for sure, we need people with leadership capabilities in Washington DC, and WFC was established to do just that.

"...Carly Fiorina told POLITICO (an elite, DC-based magazine) on Friday that the AZ immigration law was driven by fear and racism. In her Gordon Brown moment (telling the truth to fellow elitists) she revealed her true thoughts about the "cracker conservative base" that she must win over to win.

I was at the May Day rally yesterday in L.A. and what did I see?...an El Salvadoran communist guerilla group banner, FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation front).

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- DeVore for California today responded to Carly Fiorina's denunciation of Republicans concerned about immigration as having a "racist tone." In an interview conducted by Politico's David Catanese and Josh Kraushaar (at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36629.html), Fiorina responded to an explicit question about whether "Republicans needed to make any changes in their approach to the growing Hispanic community" with this statement: "There has been a very unfortunate racist tone that has emerged in a lot of the discussion about immigration and that's inexcusable. We must be a country that welcomes legal immigrants to this country."

Chuck DeVore said, "It looks like Carly Fiorina believes her own fellow Republicans have a 'racist tone' on immigration -- or at least that's what she tells her friends in the D.C. press. I know better.

"Unlike Carly, I know and respect my fellow Republicans. "Unlike Carly, I've been an active Republican and conservative all my life. "Unlike Carly, I've lived in southern California for decades. "Unlike Carly, I've led Hispanic American soldiers -- and been led by them. "Unlike Carly, I've studied the border problem from the standpo int of a senior California National Guardsman. "Unlike Carly, I've engaged the illegal-immigration problem as a lawmaker, a father and homeowner in affected communities. "

Oh oh......Hellllllllllloooooo Vera!National Enquirer has a pretty good track record with John Edwards

and Tiger Woods...and now they are on the Obama trail.....tried to give you-all plenty of links...at least these are what are available at this hour...a surprising number of links to the old stories are all broken.....look forward to what everyone turns up!

MORGAN & MOY: Leaders who serve with honor

(WashingtonTimes.com)

George Washington, a soldier's soldier - a leader with impeccable and unquestionable loyalty to the United States and its citizens - once said that "few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder." That sums up the problem with many of our so-called leaders, from inside the Beltway to the smallest towns of California. They can be bought, swayed and led by the highest bidder or the special interest with the deepest pockets.

The American soldier has protected all of the God-given gifts the United States enjoys: freedom, safety and hope. American troops have fought in mud, dirt and sand and through the blood of their brothers on the battlefield to first create our Union, then preserve it and, finally, to guard against its enemies, foreign and domestic, who aim to crush it.

That the men and women in uniform have selflessly sacrificed for America is no secret. But what intrigues those who revere the troops are the lengths to which they reach beyond the battlefield to serve humanity. A growing number of veterans are stepping up for their country once again, this time as members of the most despised category of human beings: the politician.

Consider Chuck DeVore, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army retired Reserve. He aims to unseat liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer, California Democrat, who carries water for the tone-deaf Obama administration. Mrs. Boxer, who has shown disdain for the military, once insisted that a decorated military leader call her "Senator" instead of "ma'am."

Jesse Kelly led a squad of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines into battle during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Now he seeks to represent the people of Arizona's 8th Congressional District.

Nick "Gunny Pop" Popaditch is a Marine whose unit tore down the statue of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Previously, he fought in the Gulf War. While serving in the Iraq war, he earned the Silver Star for actions in combat during the First Battle for Fallujah. A rocket-propelled grenade hit Mr. Popaditch in the head, and he was blinded. Surgeons restored part of his sight.

Now Mr. Popaditch wants to continue protecting the Constitution by serving in Congress for California's 51st District.

"My freedom was bought and paid for by our Founding Fathers and again by my father's generation," Mr. Popaditch states on his website. "The chain of custody has been handed down to me and my generation to secure our liberties for our children and for theirs."

These are just a few of the warriors who offer themselves to further service of America. They are the inspiration for WarriorsforCongress.com, a political action committee that supports veterans who want to continue their service to our country in Congress.

What would drive a hero to subject himself to the lonely pit of politics? The short answer: They have seen the enemy, put their lives on the line for their homeland. A natural leadership resides in their souls, and they are battle-tested like no civilian. Yet they bring to the debate their determination as both soldiers and citizen leaders.

"When we assumed the soldier, we did not lay aside the citizen," George Washington said.

Veterans possess a depth in their constitution that America needs now as she faces historical debt in both finances and veneration. Dedication, honesty, self-sacrifice and unmatched vigilance are the marks of those who served with honor in the U.S. armed forces. Compare that to the scandal-ridden Congress that ignores the will of the people who have given them the honor to represent us.

WarriorsforCongress.com will continue the fight to restore dignity to the Senate and House. We have stood for our troops while politicians and misguided groups attacked our military for doing its job in the war on terror.

Now we are dedicated to helping our veterans take the next step in building a stronger government that, above all, protects our Constitution. It is time to bring back the competence of George Washington's leadership, which arose from pain and dedication as a military general that our veterans recognize and emulate.

Melanie Morgan and Catherine Moy are co-founders of WarriorsforCongress.com.

Packages to troops planned

By From staff reportsSunday, May 31, 2009

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library will host a fundraising campaign June 25 to send the largest-ever shipment of care packages to troops serving overseas.

The Honor Their Service event will include a telethon-style broadcast, aimed at raising funds for the shipment. Some of the key participants will includes Rush Limbaugh, Jon Voight, Mark Levin, former President George H.W. Bush and Laura Ingraham.

It will be held in the Presidential Learning Center, and organizers say tickets will be sold to the public.

The event will be hosted by Melanie Morgan from San Francisco’s KSFO Radio, and Andrew Breitbart, who runs Breitbart TV.

Move America Forward is the organizer of the event and calls itself the nation’s largest grass-roots, pro-troop organization.

“Not only is it a perfect setting for our incredible line-up of guests, but it is fitting and an honor to be associated with a president that was so strong on national security and cared deeply for our troops,” said Ben Mathis, of Mathis Entertainment, who will produce the telethon.

This is the second year for the event. Last year, viewers donated more than $1.6 million to send care packages to troops. Organizers hope to surpass that number this year.

The goal is to send care packages to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the eight-hour event that will be broadcast on the Internet, radio and TV, viewers will be encouraged to sponsor care packages for the troops as the guests and hosts discuss various topics related to supporting our troops.

Ya just gotta laugh! My favorite lefty whom I hated before I merely despised him (just kidding!) has posted an announcement of my new job at the Examiner.com and I'll share a bit with you.

Former KSFO-AM morning host, and long time ago Lib, Melanie Morgan, the West Coast's answer to Ann Coulter, has a new nationally syndicated morning show, which will debut from 6 to 9 a.m. June 15.

Morgan lives in Marin County with husband Jack Swanson, who manages KGO and KSFO. She will host the Washington Times linked "America's Morning News" with John McCaslin, a Times reporter and editor who fills in for Rush Limbaugh.

Morgan was a Michigan liberal reporter who changed her ways and became an outspoken conservative. She helped elect California's latest actor governor by leading the move to recall Gray Davis. I'm not sure conservatives are happy about that these days.

And right now, I am being showered with the richness of many blessings.

Longtime radio personality Melanie Morgan and award-winning newspaper columnist John McCaslin have been named the anchors for The Washington Times' new morning-drive radio show, set to debut nationwide June 15.

"America's Morning News" will hit the airwaves from 6 to 9 a.m., five days a week, showcasing The Times' investigative and accountability journalism. The new team will hash out politics, defense, security, policy, culture and entertainment from a newly built, state-of-the-art broadcast facility inside The Times' newsroom.

"Melanie and John will leverage every ounce of expertise, energy and gumshoe reporting out of The Times' investigative newsroom. They know how to break stories that matter to the American public, are passionate about holding the powerful to account and are committed to unearthing the stories that matter most to Americans - at the dinner table, by the water cooler and inside their pocketbook," Executive Editor John Solomon said. Read the rest of the story...

...and as I board an airplane at San Francisco International airport in a few hours, I will be thinking of the men in the Morgan family who sacrificed their lives for our country - Lt. Robert Morgan - and all the others who served with pride and distinction.

Our country thanks each and every man and woman who died to keep us strong, united and free.

More eloquent thoughts from James Robbins, my friend who writes at the Washington Times.

A society as blessed as ours - its people safe even while at war, prosperous even amidst economic crisis - needs to be reminded that such blessings come at a cost. Memorial Day is a time to remember, but it is more than that. Good men and women go off to war on our behalf, and some do not return. In today's editorial we honor our fallen heroes:http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/25/remembering-our-heroes/

Please excuse me for the light-blogging lately. I have some major life changes that are taking place, which I won't be able to share with you until next week. But you'll be reading about me in the newspapers and on the blogs, I can guarantee it!

I might even make MSNBC'S Keith Olbermann "Worst Person in the World" award - again. I certainly hope so, because I wear it like a badge of honor.

In the meantime, please read this Human Events piece by Motor City Madman Ted Nugent and his thoughts on the Memorial Day Holiday.

Memorial Day is the most important American holiday in the Nugent household.

We know that without Memorial Day there would be no Independence Day, no freedoms, and no America. In fact, but for the sacrifices we remember on in our Memorial Day celebration, the entire world would be a much darker place of tyranny, slavery and oppression.

Memorial Day is our day to give thanks and to remember those courageous U.S. military heroes who paid the ultimate sacrifice so that freedom's flame continues to burn bright instead of fading into a faint flicker in the hearts of civilized men. These warriors are the very tip of freedom's lance and all good people owe them dearly.

From Bunker Hill to the walls of the Alamo, from the farm fields at Gettysburg to the beaches at Normandy and Iwo Jima, from the Afghanistan mountains to every other piece of hallowed ground where Americans have fought and died in freedom's name, Old Glory still proudly dances in the wind of freedom.

In paying the ultimate sacrifice, American warriors ensured that not only would America continue to be free but that America would continue to be a beacon of freedom so intense that it no threat of oppression can extinguish it. So long as Old Glory flutters in the wind, there is hope. So long as American warriors are willing to carry Old Glory into battle, freedom's flame will never be extinguished.

Our enemies can knock sometimes down our buildings, but mortar, brick and steel does not America make. It is the irrepressible spirit and undying love of freedom that is uniquely America and it is the American warrior who is willing to fight and die to protect the God-given freedoms and rights of all people.

On this Memorial Day, I encourage each of you to spend a few moments and quietly offer a prayer of thanks to those who paid for your freedom with their lives. If you have the chance, take your children and walk quietly and reverently through a military cemetery. Stop at each white cross. Read the names carefully on the tombstones. These are the names of freedom.

Look up at Old Glory as she dances in the breeze. Surely you will agree there is no more solemn and beautiful sight than to see our sacred stars and stripes fluttering quietly in the breeze above a military cemetery.

It is our duty as parents and citizens to ensure that our children and grandchildren know that freedom is not free, that it is paid for with the blood and lives of warriors. Do not shirk this responsibility. It is one of the most important lessons you can ever impart to your children.

To quote President Reagan: "We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so that we may always be free."

Memorial Day is the most important American holiday. May God eternally bless the American warrior -- the protector of freedom and liberty.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – A man said he saved his dog's life after sucking venom from a rattlesnake bite out of the animal's nose. Bobby Jenkins said he began feeling ill after getting his dog, Tank, to a veterinarian. He went to the hospital and received a dose of antivenin.

In all, Jenkins needed four vials of antivenin at a cost of $3,500 per vial.

Meanwhile, Jenkins said his dog's head swelled up to three times its normal size. Tank had been bitten after running under some equipment on the family ranch.

The dog also received antivenin and both Jenkins and his dog have recovered.

Former Vice-President Dick Cheney might not be up in Kris Allen terrority, but his approval ratings are on the rise.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The same day Dick Cheney delivered a major speech on the battle against terrorism, a new national poll suggests that favorable opinions of the former vice president are on the rise.

But the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, released Wednesday morning, indicates that a majority of Americans still have an unfavorable opinion of Cheney.

Fifty-five percent of people questioned in the poll say they have an unfavorable opinion of the former vice president. Thirty-seven percent say they have a favorable opinion of Cheney, up eight points from January when he left office.

In the past two months the former vice president has become a frequent critic of the new Administration in numerous national media interviews.

“Is Cheney’s uptick due to his visibility as one of the most outspoken critics of the Obama administration? Almost certainly not,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Former President George W. Bush's favorable rating rose six points in that same time period, and Bush has not given a single public speech since he left office.”

The poll suggests that 41 percent of Americans hold a favorable opinion of the former president, with 57 percent viewing him unfavorably.

The survey’s release came just a few hours before Cheney spoke out Thursday on the war against terror during a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington based think tank. The former vice president defended the Bush Administration’s handling of the war on terror and challenged the Obama Administration’s attempt to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted May 14-17, with 1,010 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey’s sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.